- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Quantum sensing in the presence of pulse errors and qubit leakage

David M. Lancaster*, Muhammad Ali Shahbaz*, Hamed Goli Yousefabad*, Sanway Chatterjee, Eegan Ram, and Jonathan D. Weinstein†,‡

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: weinstein@physics.unr.edu
  • ‡https://www.weinsteinlab.org
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 043034 – Published 13 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lb3n-qply

Abstract

Using both simulation and experiment, we investigate the robustness of dynamical decoupling sequences to pulse errors: rotation errors and detuning errors. Whereas prior work examined the effect of errors on coherence times, here we show that quantum sensing can be affected by pulse errors in dramatically different ways than coherence times alone. We also explore the effects of qubit leakage: off-resonant coupling to other quantum levels. We find order-of-magnitude differences between commonly used dynamical decoupling sequences in both their sensitivity to pulse errors and leakage.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (37)

  1. N. Ezzell, B. Pokharel, L. Tewala, G. Quiroz, and D. A. Lidar, Dynamical decoupling for superconducting qubits: A performance survey, Phys. Rev. Appl. 20, 064027 (2023).
  2. C. L. Degen, F. Reinhard, and P. Cappellaro, Quantum sensing, Rev. Mod. Phys. 89, 035002 (2017).
  3. H. Y. Carr and E. M. Purcell, Effects of diffusion on free precession in nuclear magnetic resonance experiments, Phys. Rev. 94, 630 (1954).
  4. S. Kolkowitz, Q. P. Unterreithmeier, S. D. Bennett, and M. D. Lukin, Sensing distant nuclear spins with a single electron spin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 137601 (2012).
  5. C. Müller, X. Kong, J.-M. Cai, K. Melentijević, A. Stacey, M. Markham, D. Twitchen, J. Isoya, S. Pezzagna, J. Meijer, J. F. Du, M. B. Plenio, B. Naydenov, L. P. McGuinness, and F. Jelezko, Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy with single spin sensitivity, Nat. Commun. 5, 4703 (2014).
  6. M. H. Abobeih, J. Cramer, M. A. Bakker, N. Kalb, M. Markham, D. J. Twitchen, and T. H. Taminiau, One-second coherence for a single electron spin coupled to a multi-qubit nuclear-spin environment, Nat. Commun. 9, 2552 (2018).
  7. U. Dargyte, D. M. Lancaster, and J. D. Weinstein, Optical and spin-coherence properties of rubidium atoms trapped in solid neon, Phys. Rev. A 104, 032611 (2021).
  8. S. Upadhyay, U. Dargyte, D. Patterson, and J. D. Weinstein, Ultralong spin-coherence times for rubidium atoms in solid parahydrogen via dynamical decoupling, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 043601 (2020).
  9. Ł. Cywiński, R. M. Lutchyn, C. P. Nave, and S. Das Sarma, How to enhance dephasing time in superconducting qubits, Phys. Rev. B 77, 174509 (2008).
  10. C. A. Ryan, J. S. Hodges, and D. G. Cory, Robust decoupling techniques to extend quantum coherence in diamond, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 200402 (2010).
  11. B. Naydenov, F. Dolde, L. T. Hall, C. Shin, H. Fedder, L. C. L. Hollenberg, F. Jelezko, and J. Wrachtrup, Dynamical decoupling of a single-electron spin at room temperature, Phys. Rev. B 83, 081201 (2011).
  12. M. Hirose, C. D. Aiello, and P. Cappellaro, Continuous dynamical decoupling magnetometry, Phys. Rev. A 86, 062320 (2012).
  13. A. M. Souza, G. A. Álvarez, and D. Suter, Robust dynamical decoupling, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 370, 4748 (2012).
  14. J. Cai, B. Naydenov, R. Pfeiffer, L. P. McGuinness, K. D. Jahnke, F. Jelezko, M. B. Plenio, and A. Retzker, Robust dynamical decoupling with concatenated continuous driving, New J. Phys. 14, 113023 (2012).
  15. D. Farfurnik, A. Jarmola, L. M. Pham, Z.-H. Wang, V. V. Dobrovitski, R. L. Walsworth, D. Budker, and N. Bar-Gill, Optimizing a dynamical decoupling protocol for solid-state electronic spin ensembles in diamond, Phys. Rev. B 92, 060301 (2015).
  16. D. Farfurnik, A. Jarmola, D. Budker, and N. Bar-Gill, Spin ensemble-based AC magnetometry using concatenated dynamical decoupling at low temperatures, J. Opt. 20, 024008 (2018).
  17. P. Rebentrost and F. K. Wilhelm, Optimal control of a leaking qubit, Phys. Rev. B 79, 060507 (2009).
  18. J. M. Gambetta, F. Motzoi, S. T. Merkel, and F. K. Wilhelm, Analytic control methods for high-fidelity unitary operations in a weakly nonlinear oscillator, Phys. Rev. A 83, 012308 (2011).
  19. Z. Chen, J. Kelly, C. Quintana, R. Barends, B. Campbell, Y. Chen, B. Chiaro, A. Dunsworth, A. G. Fowler, E. Lucero, et al., Measuring and suppressing quantum state leakage in a superconducting qubit, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 020501 (2016).
  20. E. Hyyppä, A. Vepsäläinen, M. Papič, C. F. Chan, S. Inel, A. Landra, W. Liu, J. Luus, F. Marxer, C. Ockeloen-Korppi, S. Orbell, B. Tarasinski, and J. Heinsoo, Reducing leakage of single-qubit gates for superconducting quantum processors using analytical control pulse envelopes, PRX Quantum 5, 030353 (2024).
  21. S. Meiboom and D. Gill, Modified spin-echo method for measuring nuclear relaxation times, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 29, 688 (1958).
  22. C. P. Slichter, Principles of Magnetic Resonance (Springer Science & Business Media, Heidelberg, Germany, 2013), Vol. 1.
  23. A. A. Maudsley, Modified Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill sequence for NMR Fourier imaging applications, J. Magn. Reson. 69, 488 (1986).
  24. T. Gullion, D. B. Baker, and M. S. Conradi, New, compensated Carr-Purcell sequences, J. Magn. Reson. 89, 479 (1990).
  25. M. H. Levitt and R. Freeman, Composite pulse decoupling, J. Magn. Reson. 43, 502 (1981).
  26. M. H. Levitt, R. Freeman, and T. Frenkiel, Broadband heteronuclear decoupling, J. Magn. Reson. 47, 328 (1982).
  27. M. H. Levitt, R. Freeman, and T. Frenkiel, Supercycles for broadband heteronuclear decoupling, J. Magn. Reson. 50, 157 (1982).
  28. M. Abobeih, J. Randall, C. Bradley, H. Bartling, M. Bakker, M. Degen, M. Markham, D. Twitchen, and T. Taminiau, Atomic-scale imaging of a 27-nuclear-spin cluster using a quantum sensor, Nature (London) 576, 411 (2019).
  29. C. Cohen-Tannoudji, B. Diu, and F. Laloe, Quantum Mechanics (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1977).
  30. C. E. Bradley, J. Randall, M. H. Abobeih, R. C. Berrevoets, M. J. Degen, M. A. Bakker, M. Markham, D. J. Twitchen, and T. H. Taminiau, A ten-qubit solid-state spin register with quantum memory up to one minute, Phys. Rev. X 9, 031045 (2019).
  31. I. I. Rabi, N. Ramsey, and J. Schwinger, Use of rotating coordinates in magnetic resonance problems, Rev. Mod. Phys. 26, 167 (1954).
  32. D. M. Lancaster, U. Dargyte, S. Upadhyay, and J. D. Weinstein, Radiative properties of rubidium atoms trapped in solid neon and parahydrogen, Phys. Rev. A 103, 052614 (2021).
  33. D. M. Lancaster, U. Dargyte, and J. D. Weinstein, Optical spin readout of single rubidium atoms trapped in solid neon, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, L012048 (2024).
  34. J. E. Sansonetti, W. C. Martin, and S. L. Young, Handbook of Basic Atomic Spectroscopic Data (Version 1.1.3) (NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 2013).
  35. M. A. Bernstein, K. F. King, and X. J. Zhou, Handbook of MRI Pulse Sequences (Elsevier, Burlington, MA, 2004).
  36. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/lb3n-qply for simulation details, comparisons of different XY and MLEV pulse sequences, and results for shaped pulses.
  37. D. M. Lancaster, M. A. Shahbaz, H. G. Yousefabad, S. Chatterjee, E. Ram, and J. D. Weinstein, Data archive for pulse sequence paper [Dataset], Zenodo, 2026, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19137206.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 043034– Published 13 October, 2026
  • Received 20 March 2026
  • Accepted 18 August 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation