Coherent manipulation of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond via frequency multiplication

Abstract

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond as ideally individual spin quantum systems can be coherently manipulated by microwave fields. Compared to the traditional method using the IQ (In-phase/Quadrature) mixer with a local oscillator and intermediate-frequency (IF) signals, we report an effective and technically simple method to generate the required microwave field by frequency multiplication and realize coherent manipulation of the NV center’s electron spin. After frequency multiplication, the IF signal can be directly converted to the high-frequency microwave field with adjustable pulse width, frequency, phase, and amplitude. A series of spin dynamics applications such as Rabi oscillation, free induction decay, and spin-locking are executed, which verified its performance and feasibility. Frequency multiplication can overcome the problem of clock synchronization between the local oscillator and IF signal and greatly reduce the complexity of the experimental system. The method can be easily used to realize a more complex quantum control sequence such as dynamic decoupling and extended to a wide range of spin-based quantum information applications in the future.