Towards a temperature-insensitive composite diamond clock

Abstract

Frequency references based on solid state spins promise simplicity, compactness, robustness, multifunctionality, ease of integration, and high densities of emitters. Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are a natural candidate, but the electronic zero-field splitting exhibits a large fractional temperature dependence, which has precluded its use as a stable clock transition. Here we show that this limitation can be overcome by forming a composite frequency reference that combines measurements of the electronic splitting D with the nuclear quadrupole splitting of the $^{14}$N nuclear spin intrinsic to the NV center. We further benchmark this composite approach against alternative strategies for mitigating temperature sensitivity. By implementing a specially designed pulse sequence with an eight-phase control scheme that suppresses pulse imperfections, we interleave measurements of D and Q in a high-density NV ensemble and demonstrate a temperature-compensated composite frequency reference. The stability of this composite diamond clock is characterized over a 10-day period at room temperature through a comparison to a Rb vapor-cell clock, yielding a fractional instability below $5 \times 10^{-9}$ for an averaging time of $\tau = 200$ s and below $1 \times 10^{-8}$ at $\tau = 2 \times 10^5$ s, corresponding to measured improvements by a factor of 4 and 200, respectively, over a clock based purely on the single frequency D for the same periods. By characterizing the residual sensitivity to magnetic fields, optical power, and radio-frequency drive amplitudes, we find that temperature is no longer the dominant source of instability. These results establish complementary electron- and nuclear-spin transitions in diamond as a viable route to thermally robust frequency metrology, providing a pathway toward compact, multifunctional solid-state clocks and quantum sensors.