1304.4709 (P. London et al.)

Detecting and polarizing nuclear spins with double resonance on a single
electron spin    [PDF]

P. London, J. Scheuer, J. -M. Cai, I. Schwarz, A. Retzker, M. B. Plenio, M. Katagiri, T. Teraji, S. Koizumi, J. Isoya, R. Fischer, L. P. McGuinness, B. Naydenov, F. Jelezko

We report the detection and polarization of nuclear spins in diamond at room temperature by using a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center. We use Hartmann-Hahn double resonance to coherently enhance the signal from a single nuclear spin while decoupling from the noisy spin-bath, which otherwise limits the detection sensitivity. As a proof-of-principle we: (I) observe coherent oscillations between the NV center and a weakly coupled nuclear spin, (II) demonstrate nuclear bath cooling which prolongs the coherence time of the NV sensor by more than a factor of five. Our results provide a route to nanometer scale magnetic resonance imaging, and novel quantum information processing protocols.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4709