Coherent Population Trapping of a Single Nuclear Spin Under Ambient Conditions.

Abstract

We demonstrate coherent population trapping of a single nuclear spin in a room-temperature solid. To this end, we exploit a three-level system with a Λ configuration in the microwave domain, which consists of nuclear spin states addressed through their hyperfine coupling to the electron spin of a single nitrogen-vacancy defect in diamond. Moreover, the Λ-scheme relaxation is externally controlled through incoherent optical pumping and separated in time from consecutive coherent microwave excitations. Such a scheme allows us (i)to monitor the sequential accumulation of population into the dark state and (ii)to reach a novel regime of coherent population trapping dynamics for which periodic arrays of dark resonances can be observed, owing to multiple constructive interferences. This Letter offers new prospects for quantum state preparation, information storage in hybrid quantum systems, and metrology.