Université PSL, Chimie ParisTech, CNRS, Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris, 11, rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 75005, Paris, France.
Sorbonne Université, Campus Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France.
Nat Commun. 2018 May 29;9(1):2127. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04509-w.
Nanoscale systems that coherently couple to light and possess spins offer key capabilities for quantum technologies. However, an outstanding challenge is to preserve properties, and especially optical and spin coherence lifetimes, at the nanoscale. Here, we report optically controlled nuclear spins with long coherence lifetimes (T) in rare-earth-doped nanoparticles. We detect spins echoes and measure a spin coherence lifetime of 2.9 ± 0.3 ms at 5 K under an external magnetic field of 9 mT, a T value comparable to those obtained in bulk rare-earth crystals. Moreover, we achieve spin T extension using all-optical spin dynamical decoupling and observe high fidelity between excitation and echo phases. Rare-earth-doped nanoparticles are thus the only nano-material in which optically controlled spins with millisecond coherence lifetimes have been reported. These results open the way to providing quantum light-atom-spin interfaces with long storage time within hybrid architectures.
纳米级系统与光相干耦合并具有自旋，为量子技术提供了关键功能。然而，一个突出的挑战是在纳米尺度上保持特性，特别是光学和自旋相干寿命。在这里，我们报告了在稀土掺杂纳米颗粒中具有长相干寿命（T）的光控核自旋。我们检测到自旋回波，并在 9 mT 的外磁场下测量到 5 K 时的自旋相干寿命为 2.9 ± 0.3 ms，这一 T 值与在块状稀土晶体中获得的值相当。此外，我们使用全光自旋动力学去耦实现了自旋 T 的扩展，并观察到激发和回波相位之间的高保真度。因此，稀土掺杂纳米颗粒是唯一报道了具有毫秒相干寿命的光控自旋的纳米材料。这些结果为在混合架构中提供具有长存储时间的量子光-原子-自旋接口铺平了道路。
