Projekte

Transition metal (TM) defects in silicon carbide (SiC) are a promising platform for applications in quantum technology. Some TM defects, e.g. vanadium, emit in one of the telecom bands, but the large ground state hyperfine manifold poses a problem for applications which require pure quantum states. We develop a driven, dissipative protocol to polarize the nuclear spin, based on a rigorous theoretical model of the defect. We further show that nuclear-spin polarization enables the use of well-known methods for initialization and long-time coherent storage of quantum states. The proposed nuclear-spin preparation protocol thus marks the first step towards an all-optically controlled integrated platform for quantum technology with TM defects in SiC.

Transition metal (TM) defects in silicon carbide have favorable spin coherence properties and are suitable as quantum memory for quantum communication. To characterize TM defects as quantum spin-photon interfaces, we model defects that have one active electron with spin 1/2 in the atomic D shell. The spin structure, as well as the magnetic and optical resonance properties of the active electron, emerge from the interplay of the crystal potential and spin-orbit coupling, and they are described by a general model derived using group theory. We find that the spin-orbit coupling leads to additional allowed transitions and a modification of the g-tensor. To describe the dependence of the Rabi frequency on the magnitude and direction of the static and driving fields, we derive an effective Hamiltonian. This theoretical description can also be instrumental in performing and optimizing spin control in TM defects.