Nuclear spin polarization and control in hexagonal boron nitride

Xingyu Gao; Sumukh Vaidya; Kejun Li; Peng Ju; Boyang Jiang; Zhujing Xu; Andres E Llacsahuanga Allcca; Kunhong Shen; Takashi Taniguchi; Kenji Watanabe; Sunil A Bhave; Yong P Chen; Yuan Ping; Tongcang Li

doi:10.1038/s41563-022-01329-8

Nuclear spin polarization and control in hexagonal boron nitride

Nat Mater. 2022 Sep;21(9):1024-1028. doi: 10.1038/s41563-022-01329-8. Epub 2022 Aug 15.

Authors

Xingyu Gao¹, Sumukh Vaidya¹, Kejun Li², Peng Ju¹, Boyang Jiang³, Zhujing Xu¹, Andres E Llacsahuanga Allcca¹, Kunhong Shen¹, Takashi Taniguchi⁴, Kenji Watanabe⁵, Sunil A Bhave^{3

6

7}, Yong P Chen^{1

3

6

7

8}, Yuan Ping⁹, Tongcang Li^{10

11

12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
² Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
³ Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
⁴ International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan.
⁵ Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan.
⁶ Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
⁷ Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
⁸ WPI-AIMR International Research Center for Materials Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
⁹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. tcli@purdue.edu.
¹¹ Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. tcli@purdue.edu.
¹² Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. tcli@purdue.edu.
¹³ Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. tcli@purdue.edu.

PMID: 35970964
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-022-01329-8

Abstract

Electron spins in van der Waals materials are playing a crucial role in recent advances in condensed-matter physics and spintronics. However, nuclear spins in van der Waals materials remain an unexplored quantum resource. Here we report optical polarization and coherent control of nuclear spins in a van der Waals material at room temperature. We use negatively charged boron vacancy ([Formula: see text]) spin defects in hexagonal boron nitride to polarize nearby nitrogen nuclear spins. We observe the Rabi frequency of nuclear spins at the excited-state level anti-crossing of [Formula: see text] defects to be 350 times larger than that of an isolated nucleus, and demonstrate fast coherent control of nuclear spins. Further, we detect strong electron-mediated nuclear-nuclear spin coupling that is five orders of magnitude larger than the direct nuclear-spin dipolar coupling, enabling multi-qubit operations. Our work opens new avenues for the manipulation of nuclear spins in van der Waals materials for quantum information science and technology.

Abstract

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