Landau-Zener-Stückelberg Interferometry of a Single Electronic Spin in a Noisy Environment

Abstract

We demonstrate quantum coherent control of single electronic spins in a nitron-vacancy center in diamond by exploiting and implementing the general concept of Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interferometry at room temperature. The interferometry manipulates an effective two-level system of electronic spins which are coupled to the nearby 14N nuclear spin in the nitron-vacancy center as well as the nuclear spin bath in the diamond. With a microwave field to control the energy gap between the two levels and an AC field as the time-dependent driving field in Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interferometry, the interference pattern can be generated and controlled by controlling a number of parameters in the fields, corresponding to coherent control of the state of the electronic spins. In particular, the interference pattern is observed oscillating as a function of the frequency of the microwave field. Decays in the visibility of the interference pattern are also observed and well explained by numerical simulation which takes into account the thermal fluctuations arising from the nuclear bath. Therefore, our work also demonstrates that Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interferometry can be used for probing decoherence processes of electronic spins.