Institute for Quantum Information Seminar

In recent years, much attention has focused on the quantum control of nanoscale systems under ambient condition; these efforts span a variety of goals ranging from quantum metrology to quantum communication and computation. In this talk, I will focus on recent efforts toward the realization of these goals by taking advantage of the spin properties of individual Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) color centers in diamond. I will begin by introducing a novel technique, which allows for the detection and manipulation of individual spins with resolution beyond the diffraction limit [1]; this constitutes an important building block for an NV-based quantum processor [2] and opens the door to nanoscale bio-imaging/sensing. I will then discuss the extraordinary readout and coherence properties of NV-based quantum registers, demonstrating single shot readout and storage times well beyond a second at room temperature [3]. The ability to store quantum information on a macroscopic time scale in small, portable devices is an important step toward the practical realization of "quantum money" type encryption primitives.

[1] Maurer et. al - Far-field optical imaging and manipulation of individual spins with nanoscale resolution - Nature Physics 6 - 912 to 918 - Sep. 2010 [2] Yao et. al. - Scalable architecture for a room temperature solid-state quantum information processor - Nature Communications 3 - 800 - Mar. 2012 [3] Maurer et. al. - Room temperature quantum bit memory exceeding