CAREER: Mechanical Control of Single Spins for Sensing and Quantum Information Processing

职业：用于传感和量子信息处理的单自旋机械控制

• 批准号: 1352660
• 负责人: Ania Bleszynski Jayich
• 金额: $ 60万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1352660&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Mechanical; Control; Single; Spins

This CAREER project is co-funded by the Electronic and Photonic Materials Program and the Condensed Matter Physics Program.Non-technical: With advances in materials processing at the nanoscale, it is now possible to form macroscopic mechanical devices that exhibit quantum mechanical effects, behavior typically observed only in atomic-scale systems. This CAREER project builds on these advances to probe the fundamental interactions between the macroscopic motion of billions of atoms moving in unison, a phonon, and a miniscule quantum object, a single electron spin. The single spin is a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond: a model quantum system with atom-like properties that are uniquely accessible and controllable. With its exquisite sensitivity, the nitrogen-vacancy center can be used as nanoscale quantum probe of spin-mechanical coupling; furthermore, harnessing this coupling could enable advances in quantum metrology and quantum information processing. Finally this juxtaposition of two systems existing at vastly different size scales enables fundamental explorations of macroscopic quantum mechanics and decoherence at the interface of quantum and classical worlds. This research is tightly coupled with a strong educational plan focusing on cultivating a passion for science in students of varied backgrounds by preparing them to attack the nation's challenges through innovative thinking and dedication. The Principle Investigator (PI) actively involves undergraduates, especially women and community college students, in her laboratory and establishes herself as a formal mentor throughout the years in their higher education. The PI partners with the UCSB School for Scientific Thought, in which graduate students teach Saturday classes to high-school students from diverse backgrounds, disseminating research discoveries to a wider audience. Technical: This project investigates how a single highly coherent spin and a macroscopic mechanical degree of freedom interact, what implications the interaction has for the quantum behavior of the spin, and whether spins and phonons can be functionally integrated. Single-crystal diamond cantilevers with embedded nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers are a novel platform to study spin-mechanical coupling. Motion of the cantilever generates large-amplitude strain fields with precisely controlled magnitude and direction. Single NV centers are used as quantum nanoscale sensors to measure the strain coupling coefficients and the results will guide a more complete theoretical treatment of the relevant ground-state spin interactions. Enhanced NV magnetic sensitivity is explored through strain tuning. Novel quantum sensing techniques based on spin relaxation are investigated in order to measure fluctuating fields of various origins. High quality-factor nanomechanical resonators containing NVs with long spin coherence times (about 10 ms) are formed via engineered diamond growth with nanoscale depth control of NVs. With this combination of excellent mechanical and spin properties, the quantum regime of spin-phonon coupling and phonon-mediated spin-spin interactions are explored.

该职业项目由电子和光子材料计划和凝聚态物理计划共同资助。非技术性：随着纳米尺度材料加工的进步，现在可以形成表现出量子力学效应、行为的宏观机械装置通常仅在原子级系统中观察到。这个职业项目建立在这些进步的基础上，探索数十亿个一致运动的原子（声子）的宏观运动和微小的量子物体（单个电子自旋）之间的基本相互作用。单自旋是金刚石中的氮空位中心：具有独特可访问和可控的类原子特性的模型量子系统。氮空位中心以其精湛的灵敏度，可作为自旋-机械耦合的纳米级量子探针；此外，利用这种耦合可以促进量子计量学和量子信息处理的进步。最后，以截然不同的尺寸尺度存在的两个系统的并置使得能够对宏观量子力学以及量子世界和经典世界界面的退相干进行基本探索。这项研究与一项强有力的教育计划紧密结合，该计划致力于培养不同背景的学生对科学的热情，让他们做好准备，通过创新思维和奉献精神应对国家的挑战。首席研究员（PI）积极让本科生，特别是女性和社区学院的学生参与她的实验室，并在多年来的高等教育中将自己确立为正式的导师。 PI 与加州大学圣巴巴拉分校科学思想学院合作，该学院的研究生在周六为来自不同背景的高中生授课，向更广泛的受众传播研究发现。 技术：该项目研究单个高度相干自旋和宏观机械自由度如何相互作用，相互作用对自旋的量子行为有何影响，以及自旋和声子是否可以在功能上集成。具有嵌入式氮空位（NV）中心的单晶金刚石悬臂梁是研究自旋机械耦合的新颖平台。悬臂的运动产生幅度和方向精确控制的大幅应变场。单NV中心被用作量子纳米级传感器来测量应变耦合系数，其结果将指导相关基态自旋相互作用的更完整的理论处理。通过应变调谐探索增强的 NV 磁灵敏度。研究了基于自旋弛豫的新型量子传感技术，以测量各种来源的脉动场。包含具有长自旋相干时间（约 10 ms）的 NV 的高品质因数纳米机械谐振器是通过工程金刚石生长和 NV 的纳米级深度控制形成的。凭借优异的机械和自旋特性的结合，探索了自旋-声子耦合和声子介导的自旋-自旋相互作用的量子体系。