CPM Seminar

Quantum sensing and engineering with nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond

Steve Bennett

Harvard University

Nitrogen vacancy centers (NVs) in diamond constitute solid state "artificial atoms" and provide a natural setting to study the interface between condensed matter physics and quantum optics. In this talk I will discuss how coherent control of one or many NVs can be used for quantum sensing and to design many-body spin Hamiltonians. First, I will present a recent experiment in which a single NV was used to sense the thermal motion of a magnetized cantilever, and our prediction that the same technique can be used to detect single mechanical quanta. Second, I will discuss several approaches to designing spin-spin interactions in an ensemble of NVs. Such interactions could be used to generate spin-squeezed states, and may further provide a way to explore many-body and topological physics in arrays of NVs.