arXiv subjects

Milos Nesladek

Publications and source records attributed to Milos Nesladek.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Irradiation-Induced Spin Bath Evolution and as-Grown Hydrogen Defects in CVD Diamond Revealed by NV-Based DEER Spectroscopy

The aim of this paper is to provide the reader with a review and current state of the art of the fabrication of high T2 coherence diamond, optimised by the use of double electron-electron resonance (DEER) spectroscopy. Using DEER, we study the formation, transformation, and annealing of paramagnetic defects in as-grown CVD diamond and after post-processing. Electron irradiation leads to the formation of an additional S = 1/2 resonance in the DEER spectrum, which we consider to be a composite X ensemble. By tracking the concentrations of X and P1 point defects during annealing from 650C to 1200C, we find that the X ensemble initially consists of a mixture of V- spins and interstitial spins, which disappear at about 650C. Vacancies migrate during annealing, forming clusters that persist to 1000C and disappear upon annealing at 1200C, contributing to the X ensemble signal. We have developed a model of the influence of the mixed spin bath on the coherence of NV centers, which includes independent couplings with P1 centers, V-, divacancies, and interstitials. Detailed DEER studies allowed us to reveal and resolve a weak signal from two additional S = 1/2 species associated with hydrogen: NVH- and consistent with a substitutional hydrogen defect, which overlaps the vacancy spectral line. Taken together, these results show that the NV-DEER method is a powerful tool for investigating paramagnetic defects in diamond with high precision and nanoscale resolution, essential for material optimisation. The achieved high T2 coherence time is consistent with the spin bath model, and the crystals reach the quality required for advanced quantum sensing applications.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Exploiting ionization dynamics in the nitrogen vacancy center for rapid, high-contrast spin and charge state initialization

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a method to strongly increase the sensitivity of spin measurements on nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond, which can be readily implemented in existing quantum sensing experiments. While charge state transitions of this defect are generally considered a parasitic effect to be avoided, we show here that these can be used to significantly increase the NV center's spin contrast, a key quantity for high sensitivity magnetometry and high fidelity state readout. The protocol consists of a two-step procedure, in which the charge state of the defect is first purified by a strong laser pulse, followed by weak illumination to obtain high spin polarization. We observe a relative improvement of the readout contrast by 17 %, and infer a reduction of the initialization error of more than 50 %. The contrast enhancement is accompanied by a beneficial increase of the readout signal. For long sequence durations, typically encountered in high-resolution magnetometry, a measurement speedup by a factor of >1.5 is extracted, and we find that the technique is beneficial for sequences of any duration. Additionally, our findings give detailed insight into the charge and spin polarization dynamics of the NV center, and provide actionable insights for direct optical, spin-to-charge, and electrical readout of solid-state spin centres.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Long Spin Relaxation Times in CVD-Grown Nanodiamonds

Currently, the primary applications of fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) are in the area of biosensing, by using photoluminescence or spin properties of colour centres, mainly represented by the Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) point defect. The sensitivity of NV-FNDs to external fields is, however, limited by crystallographic defects, which influence their key quantum state characteristics - the spin longitudinal (\textit{T$_1$}) and spin transversal (\textit{T$_2$}) relaxation and coherence times, respectively. We report on utilising an advanced FND growth technique consisting of heterogeneous nucleation on pre-engineered sites to create FNDs averaging around 60 nm in size, with mean longitudinal coherence times of 800 $μ$s and a maximum over 1.8 ms, close to bulk theoretical values. This is a major, nearly ten-fold improvement over commercially available nanodiamonds for the same size range of 50 to 150 nm. Heavy-N doped nanodiamond shells, important for sensing events in nm proximity to the diamond surface, are fabricated and discussed in terms of re-nucleation and twinning on \{111\} crystal facets. We also discuss scalability issues in order to enable the production of FND volumes matching the needs of sensing applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

High PDMR contrast in single NV centres and related photocurrent properties

This paper aims to extend the understanding of the mechanism of photo-electrical detection of magnetic resonance (PDMR) in nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres. This technique is particularly important for development of solid-state quantum computing platforms. In particular, we report on the new insight in the photocurrent (PC) generation and charge cycling in the single NV centre, which is related to PDMR contrast reaching 50\% and above. We develop a technique to locate PC related features. We find that electrons generated at the NV centre are stored in interface trap levels and establish that the interface states serve as an amplifier that can be driven by introducing a second laser into our confocal setup. We show that controlling these interface states allows one to significantly enhance the PDMR contrast. We develop a model that consistently explains observed amplification effects even without the application of a bias voltage.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

High Fidelity Single-NV Qubit Quantum State Tomography by Photoelectric Readout

Quantum computing is a rapidly developing field. However, the most commonly used qubits require cryogenic conditions to operate, which increases the costs and puts constraints on the up-scaling. Ambient solid-state qubits provide an alternative with potential for large-scale application. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is one of the main candidates for solid-state computing architectures at room temperature and has proven to be competitive in terms of gate fidelity, quantum error correction, couplings, etc. Each NV center has an associated electronic spin that is conventionally read out by photoluminescence. However, regarding the creation of small, ambient NV-based quantum processors, the optical readout introduces limitations on the collection efficiency and resolution of the readout as well as the size of the final device and its integration into standard semiconductor architectures. In this work, we investigate the competitiveness of the photoelectric readout versus the traditional optical readout. In particular, we report on using photoelectrical detection to perform quantum state tomography measurements on a single NV center. We achieve the fidelity $0.995 \pm 0.0062$ for state reconstruction, comparable to optical measurements, demonstrating that the fidelity does not suffer from the adapted readout, highlighting the value of photoelectric detection for NV-based quantum processors.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Modelling and experimental verification of photoelectrical response of NV diamond spin centres

We report on a mathematical model of the photoelectric response of NV colour centres in diamond, that can be employed for sensing and quantum science information applications. Although the model applies to NV centre in diamond, it can be applied with small modifications to other semiconducting solid state qubits. In our model, we include the drift and collection of charge carriers as well as the presence of other defects via generation and recombination dynamics. Though the photoluminescence readout and the associated dynamics of the NV defect has been extensively studied experimentally and theoretically, so far, there has been no precise model for photocurrent readout, including these effects. In our description, we use a multilevel-level system including mS=0, mS=+-1 ground and excited states, singlet state and the NV0 neutral state. Also, the presence of substitutional nitrogen (NS), which for example determines the spin coherence via the paramagnetic spin bath, is discussed together with presence of acceptor defects. We model the time-dependent occupation of all electronic sublevels and also consider the electronic charge transport from the Boltzmann transport equation, leading to information about the charge state transitions and recombination dynamics. ODMR and PDMR response as well as their quantum efficiencies, are calculated. On this basis, we determine an optimal parameter space for qubit operations, including the highest spin contrast and especially relate those to NS presence. The model is confirmed experimentally and can become a useful tool for optimisation of the performance of NV qubit photoelectric readout.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Charge-state stability of single NV centers in HPHT-type IIa diamond

This is a preliminary version. Improvements and additional analysis will be included in a revised manuscript. We investigate the charge-state stability of individual nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in weakly doped HPHT IIa diamond containing sub-ppm concentrations of boron and nitrogen. Using Ti/Al coplanar electrodes on an oxygen-terminated surface, we study how applied electric fields and optical excitation jointly govern NV charge conversion. By combining voltage-dependent photoluminescence, real-time charge-state monitoring, laser-power saturation with spectral decomposition, and time-resolved measurements, we reveal that electric fields several micrometers from the contacts significantly increase the NV- population and enhance spin readout. At low excitation powers, the NV- population evolves on minute timescales following compressed-exponential kinetics, consistent with slow space-charge rearrangement in ultra-insulating diamond. Under pulsed excitation, we observe hundreds-of-nanoseconds NV-/NV0 conversion driven by hole capture, which is strongly suppressed by applied bias. Our results demonstrate that residual boron acceptors play a key role in determining charge-state stability and show how electrical bias can reliably stabilize NV- in weakly doped bulk diamond.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Electrical Readout of Spin Environments in Diamond for Quantum Sensing

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in diamond are a key platform for quantum sensing and quantum information, combining long coherence times with controllable spin-spin interactions. Most of current quantum algorithms rely on optical access, which limit device integration and applicability in opaque or miniaturized settings. Here we demonstrate an all-electrical approach, photocurrent double electron-electron resonance (PC-DEER), permitting exploiting local dipolar interactions between individual NV spin qubits or ensembles and nearby paramagnetic defects with sub-confocal resolution. PC-DEER extends photocurrent NV readout from single-spin to spin-bath control and coherent manipulation, enabling characterization of bath-induced noise and effective deployment of noise-reduction protocols. We resolve the signatures of substitutional nitrogen (P1) and NVH centers with reproducible contrast by using electrical signals. Our results establish a scalable, optical-free spin readout strategy that bridges fundamental studies of spin environments with deployable quantum technologies, advancing the integration of diamond-based sensors into solid-state quantum devices.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Orthogonal-state-based Measurement Device Independent Quantum Communication

We attempt to propose the first orthogonal-state-based protocols of measurement-device-independent quantum secure direct communication and quantum dialogue employing single basis, i.e., Bell basis as decoy qubits for eavesdropping detection. Orthogonal-state-based protocols are inherently distinct from conventional conjugate-coding protocols, offering unconditional security derived from the duality and monogamy of entanglement. Notably, these orthogonal-state-based protocols demonstrate improved performance over conjugate-coding based protocols under certain noisy environments, highlighting the significance of selecting the best basis choice of decoy qubits for secure quantum communication under collective noise. Furthermore, we rigorously analyze the security of the proposed protocols against various eavesdropping strategies, including intercept-and-resend attack, entangle-and-measure attack, information leakage attack, flip attack, and disturbance or modification attack. Our findings also show that, with appropriate modifications, the proposed orthogonal-state-based measurement-device-independent quantum secure direct communication protocol can be transformed into orthogonal-state-based measurement-device-independent versions of quantum key distribution protocols, expanding their applicability. Our protocols leverage fundamentally distinct resources to close the security loopholes linked to measurement devices, while also effectively doubling the distance for secure direct message transmission compared to traditional quantum communication methods.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

High fidelity quantum state tomography of electron-$^{14}$N nuclear hybrid spin register in diamond using Rabi oscillations

We report on a new quantum state characterisation method, which we call Rabi-based Quantum State Tomography (RQST), that we have validated on single-qubit quantum states, in particular on the electron and nuclear spins of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre in diamond, demonstrating high fidelities. The difference of RQST with conventional tomography methods is in the implementation of rotation operators and construction of density matrix from the measured data sets. We demonstrate efficient quantum state control of the electron spin at room temperature with an average fidelity of 0.995 over more than 40 measurements on different states on the Bloch sphere with a maximum fidelity of 0.99992. Also, we apply the methodology to the dark NV nuclear spin state. The state is read via the electron spin using the C-NOT two-qubit entanglement gate and demonstrate fidelities of the same order.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

High fidelity two-qubit quantum state tomography of Electron-14N hybrid spin register in diamond

We report here on a major improvement of the control and characterization capabilities of 14N nuclear spin of single NV centers in diamond, as well as on a new method that we have devised for characterizing quantum states, i.e. quantum state tomography using Rabi experiments. Depending on whether we use amplitude information or phase information from Rabi experiments, we define two sub-methods namely Rabi amplitude quantum state tomography (RAQST) and Rabi phase quantum state tomography (RPQST). The advantage of Rabi-based tomography methods is that they lift the requirement of unitary operations used in other methods in general and standard methods in particular. On one hand, this does not increase the complexity of the tomography experiments in large registers, and on the other hand, it decreases the error induced by MW irradiation. We used RAQST and RPQST to investigate the quality of various two-qubit pure states in our setup. As expected, test quantum states show very high fidelity with the theoretical counterpart.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Back-Action Evading Measurement in Gravitational Wave Detectors to Overcome Standard Quantum Limit, Using Negative Radiation Pressure

Aiming at application for gravitational wave (GW) detection, we propose a novel scheme how to obtain quantum back action evading measurements performed on an opto-mechanical cavity, by introducing a negative radiation pressure coupling between the cavity field and the end mirror. The scheme consists of introducing a double cavity with end mirrors interlocked by a pivot and moving in opposite directions. The measurement is performed by sending a two-mode squeezed vacuum to both cavities and detecting the output through the heterodyne detection. Compared to the previously proposed hybrid negative mass spin-optomechanical system in Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 031101 (2018), we see that our scheme is capable to suppress back action noise by nearly two orders of magnitude more in the lower frequency region. Overall, the setup has been able to squeeze the output noise below the standard quantum limit, with more efficiency. In addition, the scheme has also proven to be beneficial for reducing thermal noise by a significant amount. We confirm our result by a numerical analysis and compared it with the previous proposal Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 031101 (2018).

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Electrical readout microwave-free sensing with diamond

While nitrogen-vacancy (NV-) centers have been extensively investigated in the context of spin-based quantum technologies, the spin-state readout is conventionally performed optically, which may limit miniaturization and scalability. Here, we report photoelectric readout of ground-state cross-relaxation features, which serves as a method for measuring electron spin resonance spectra of nanoscale electronic environments and also for microwave-free sensing. As a proof of concept, by systematically tuning NV centers into resonance with the target electronic system, we extracted the spectra for the P1 electronic spin bath in diamond. Such detection may enable probing optically inactive defects and the dynamics of local spin environment. We also demonstrate a magnetometer based on photoelectric detection of the ground-state level anticrossings (GSLAC), which exhibits a favorable detection efficiency as well as magnetic sensitivity. This approach may offer potential solutions for determining spin densities and characterizing local environment.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2021

Entanglement Limits in Hybrid Spin-Mechanical Systems

We investigate how to generate continuous-variable entanglement between distant optomechanical and spin systems, by transferring input two-mode squeezed vacuum state to the system. Such a setup has been proposed for backaction evading gravitational-wave measurement, squeezing the output noise below the standard quantum limit. We find that the spin cavity entanglement saturates to a particular value when no mechanics are involved even though the entanglement of the input beam increases steadily, and drops down when the mechanical oscillator interacts with the cavity. Our study also reveals that the spin optical readout rate enables the robustness of the spin-cavity entanglement with input squeezing whereas the optomechanical coupling strength disables it. The entanglement reaches its maximum when the effective resonance frequency and bandwidth of the cavity match the spin system. Determining collective quadrature fluctuations, our analysis also shows that even though the entanglement between spin and cavity, and cavity and mechanics is significantly present; it is still impossible to obtain entanglement between spin and mechanical oscillator.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Room-temperature control and electrical readout of individual nitrogen-vacancy nuclear spins

Nuclear spins in semiconductors are leading candidates for quantum technologies, including quantum computation, communication, and sensing. Nuclear spins in diamond are particularly attractive due to their extremely long coherence lifetime. With the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre, such nuclear qubits benefit from an auxiliary electronic qubit, which has enabled entanglement mediated by photonic links. The transport of quantum information by the electron itself, via controlled transfer to an adjacent centre or via the dipolar interaction, would enable even faster and smaller processors, but optical readout of arrays of such nodes presents daunting challenges due to the required sub-diffraction inter-site distances. Here, we demonstrate the electrical readout of a basic unit of such systems - a single 14N nuclear spin coupled to the NV electron. Our results provide the key ingredients for quantum gate operations and electrical readout of nuclear qubit registers, in a manner compatible with nanoscale electrode structures. This demonstration is therefore a milestone towards large-scale diamond quantum devices with semiconductor scalability.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Nanoscale Dynamic Readout of a Chemical Redox Process Using Radicals Coupled with Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Nanodiamonds

Biocompatible nanoscale probes for sensitive detection of paramagnetic species and molecules associated with their (bio)chemical transformations would provide a desirable tool for a better understanding of cellular redox processes. Here, we describe an analytical tool based on quantum sensing techniques. We magnetically coupled negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in nanodiamonds (NDs) with nitroxide radicals present in a bioinert polymer coating of the NDs. We demonstrated that the T1 spin relaxation time of NV centers is very sensitive to the number of nitroxide radicals, with a resolution down to ~10 spins per ND (detection of approximately $ 10^-23 $ mol in a localized volume). The detection is based on T1 shortening upon the radical attachment and we propose a theoretical model describing this phenomenon. We further show this colloidally stable, water-soluble system can be used dynamically for spatiotemporal readout of a redox chemical process (oxidation of ascorbic acid) occurring near the ND surface in an aqueous environment under ambient conditions.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2016

Pulsed photoelectric coherent manipulation and detection of NV centre spins in diamond

Hybrid photoelectric detection of NV magnetic resonances (PDMR) is anticipated to lead to scalable quantum chip technology. To achieve this goal, it is crucial to prove that PDMR readout is compatible with the coherent spin control. Here we present PDMR MW pulse protocols that filter background currents related to ionization of NS0 defects and achieve a high contrast and S/N ratio. We demonstrate Rabi and Ramsey protocols on shallow nitrogen-implanted electronic grade diamond and the coherent readout of ~ 5 NV spins, as a first step towards the fabrication of scalable photoelectric quantum devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Optical quenching and recovery of photoconductivity in single-crystal diamond

We study the photocurrent induced by pulsed-light illumination (pulse duration is several nanoseconds) of single-crystal diamond containing nitrogen impurities. Application of additional continuous-wave light of the same wavelength quenches pulsed photocurrent. Characterization of the optically quenched photocurrent and its recovery is important for the development of diamond based electronics and sensing.

physics.optics↗