Harnessing Nitrogen Vacancy Centers for Hybrid Quantum Information Systems

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Currently much progress has been witnessed in the quantum-information technologies. The emerging quantum information applications serve as a transformative operation platform enabling an unprecedented data storage volume, processing speed, parallelization, as well as robust strategies against random and malignant perturbations. Many of those advantages derive from their quantum-mechanical nature endowed by excellent quantum coherence, controllable entanglement, and high fidelity of operations, which enable opportunities for outperforming their classical counterparts. Known as single-spin quantum bits, nitrogen vacancy centers, optically-active atomic defects in diamond, are known for their intrinsically long coherence time, single-spin addressability, and notable versatility in a broad temperature range, offering remarkable opportunities in designing multifunctional quantum-information systems. This proposal aims to integrate nitrogen vacancy centers with functional spintronic devices to develop hybrid quantum architectures, providing opportunities to develop nitrogen-vacancy-based quantum computers. The proposed research project will promote the participation of a diverse group of graduate and undergraduate students from physics and engineering departments and outreach activities will include lectures and demos to nearby high schools and community colleges. The proposed research and education activities will increase the society’s awareness in material science and quantum information technologies.The goal of this study is to address the major challenges facing quantum-computing with nitrogen vacancy centers by electrically manipulating the quantum spin states of nitrogen vacancy centers via the localized microwave magnetic fields generated by spin-torque nano-oscillators. By introducing the single-magnon mode sustained by a one-dimensional magnetic coupler, macroscale entanglement between distant nitrogen vacancy spin qubits can be established. The mutual interaction between spin-torque nano-oscillators and nitrogen vacancy centers can be controlled in a scalable fashion down to a sub-micrometer regime, which significantly improves the scalability of nitrogen vacancy centers in developing quantum electronic devices. By developing nitrogen-vacancy-magnon-based hybrid quantum systems and demonstrating their operation in an ambient environment, it is proposed a compatible, solid-state-based quantum-operation platform, which can be conveniently extended to the on-chip devices. It is expected new opportunities will emerge for designing high-density, scalable quantum memory and significantly promote the role of nitrogen vacancy centers in developing next-generation quantum technologies. The study will also elucidate the intriguing science of spin-torque nano-oscillators. Nitrogen vacancy centers will provide information to access the underlying spin transport and dynamic behaviors in nano-spintronic systems and provide guidelines to design advanced magnetic materials to improve the performance of spintronic electronics for future transformative information technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.