Universal Dynamical Decoupling of a Single Solid-State Spin from a Spin Bath

TLDR

Controlling the interaction of a single quantum system with its environment is a fundamental challenge in quantum science and technology. The study aims to dramatically suppress the coupling of a single spin in diamond with its surrounding spin bath. This is achieved by employing double‑axis dynamical decoupling. Quantum process tomography confirms that double‑axis dynamical decoupling preserves arbitrary spin states, extending coherence times more than 25 times over spin echo and scaling with pulse number up to 136 pulses, thereby opening a new regime for quantum information protocols.

Abstract

Controlling the interaction of a single quantum system with its environment is a fundamental challenge in quantum science and technology. We dramatically suppress the coupling of a single spin in diamond with the surrounding spin bath by using double-axis dynamical decoupling. The coherence is preserved for arbitrary quantum states, as verified by quantum process tomography. The resulting coherence time enhancement is found to follow a general scaling with the number of decoupling pulses. No limit is observed for the decoupling action up to 136 pulses, for which the coherence time is enhanced more than 25 times compared to spin echo. These results uncover a new regime for experimental quantum science and allow to overcome a major hurdle for implementing quantum information protocols.