Relaxation processes and high-field coherent spin manipulation in color center ensembles in 6 H -SiC

Abstract

Coherent spin manipulations of spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ color center ensembles in 6H-SiC crystal have been studied in high magnetic fields using methods of pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance, Rabi oscillations, and pulsed electron-electron double resonance under optical alignment conditions of the spin level populations. Rabi oscillation experiments show room temperature coherent control of these spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ color center ensembles in strong magnetic fields. A sharp decrease of the spin-lattice relaxation time ${T}_{1}$, \ensuremath{\sim}40 times, was observed in 6H-SiC at magnetic field of \ensuremath{\sim}3.5 T with increasing temperature from 100 to 300 K, while the spin-spin relaxation time ${T}_{2}$ is only shortened by \ensuremath{\sim}1.3 times. With an increase in the magnetic field, the times ${T}_{1}$ and ${T}_{2}$ were shown to decrease. The relaxation time ${T}_{1}$ in the case of magnetic field directed along the axis of the spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ center is \ensuremath{\sim}2 times longer than ${T}_{1}$ in magnetic field perpendicular to this axis. Relaxation times of the spin center in crystal grown with a reduced concentration of an isotope $^{29}\mathrm{Si}$ are significantly longer than crystal, with the natural content of isotopes. With a decrease in the $^{29}\mathrm{Si}$ content in our experiments by a factor of \ensuremath{\sim}5, the effective nuclear spin bath in SiC is reduced by a factor of \ensuremath{\sim}2. In a zero magnetic field resonance, transitions are allowed as magnetic dipole transitions with frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$ which correspond to the zero-field splitting. In zero magnetic field and in fixed magnetic fields, the Rabi frequency was shown, using so-called ``Feynman-Vernon-Hellwarth transformation,'' to be ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{R}=|\ensuremath{\gamma}|{B}_{1}$. In pulsed electron-electron double resonance experiments, a change in the intensity of the electron spin echo signal corresponding to one of the spin-allowed fine structure transitions is recorded depending on the sweep of the second frequency. The experiments show the possibility to coherently detect the optical spin alignment between ${M}_{S}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\frac{3}{2}$ via optically pumped silent ${M}_{S}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\frac{1}{2}$ sublevels of the spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ color centers, including a detection of Rabi oscillations.