Skip to content

Solid-state spin coherence time approaching the physical limit

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2025-02-28
JournalScience Advances
AuthorsShuo Han, Xiangyu Ye, Xu Zhou, Zhaoxin Liu, Yuhang Guo
InstitutionsZhejiang University, University of Science and Technology of China
Citations5

Extending the coherence time of quantum systems to their physical limit is a long-standing pursuit and critical for developing quantum science and technology. By characterizing all the microscopic noise sources of the electronic spin [nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center] in diamonds using complete noise spectroscopy, we observe a previously unforeseen noise spectrum manifested as the empirical limit ( <mml:math xmlns:mml=ā€œhttp://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathMLā€ display=ā€œinlineā€ overflow=ā€œscrollā€> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>T</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>ā‰ˆ</mml:mo> <mml:mfrac> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mfrac> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>T</mml:mi> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) that has puzzled researchers for decades in various solid-state systems. By implementing a corresponding dynamical decoupling strategy, we are able to surpass the empirical limit and approach the upper physical limit T 2 = 2 T 1 for NVs, from room temperature down to 220 kelvin. Our observations, including the independence across different spatial sites and its dependence on temperature in the same way as spin-lattice relaxation, suggest an emerging decoherence mechanism dominated by spin-lattice interaction. These results provide a unified and universal strategy for characterizing and controlling microscopic noises, thereby paving the way for achieving the physical limit in various solid-state systems.