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Optimal quantum control of a spin qubit in diamond for biosensing

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2022-06-07
AuthorsSantiago Hernández-Gómez, Federico Balducci, Paola Cappellaro, Antonello Scardicchio, Nicole Fabbri
InstitutionsThe Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), National Institute of Optics

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is a quantum defect in diamond with unique properties for use in high-sensitive, high-resolution quantum sensors of magnetic fields. One of the most interesting and challenging application of NV quantum sensors is nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging (nano-MRI), which would enable to address single biomolecules. To this goal, improving the sensitivity of the NV sensor is a crucial task. Here, we present a quantum optimal control method that optimizes the sensitivity of NV sensor to specific weak magnetic signals with biologically-relevant, complex spectrum. The method, based on the mapping of the sensing problem on a problem of energy optimization of an Ising chain, allows us to improve sensitivity by three orders of magnitude compared to standard control sequences.

  1. 2013 - The nitrogen-vacancy colour centre in diamond [Crossref]
  2. 2022 - Optimal control of a quantum sensor: A fast algorithm based on an analytic solution