Anisotropic Spin-Acoustic Resonance in Silicon Carbide at Room Temperature

Fiber-integrated silicon carbide silicon-vacancy-based magnetometer

Silicon vacancies in silicon carbide have drawn much attention for various types of quantum sensing. However, most previous experiments are realized using confocal scanning systems, which limits their practical applications. In this work, we demonstrate a compact fiber-integrated silicon carbide silicon-vacancy-based magnetometer at room temperature. First, we effectively couple the silicon vacancy in a tiny silicon carbide slice with an optical fiber tip and realize the readout of the spin signal through the fiber at the same time. We then study the optically detected magnetic resonance spectra at different laser and microwave powers, obtaining an optimized magnetic field sensitivity of 12.3 μT/Hz ¹². Based on this, the magnetometer is used to measure the strength and polar angle of an external magnetic field. Through these experiments, we have paved the way for fiber-integrated silicon-vacancy-based magnetometer applications in practical environments, such as geophysics and biomedical sensing.

On-chip generation and dynamic piezo-optomechanical rotation of single photons

Integrated photonic circuits are key components for photonic quantum technologies and for the implementation of chip-based quantum devices. Future applications demand flexible architectures to overcome common limitations of many current devices, for instance the lack of tuneabilty or built-in quantum light sources. Here, we report on a dynamically reconfigurable integrated photonic circuit comprising integrated quantum dots (QDs), a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducers directly fabricated on a monolithic semiconductor platform. We demonstrate on-chip single photon generation by the QD and its sub-nanosecond dynamic on-chip control. Two independently applied SAWs piezo-optomechanically rotate the single photon in the MZI or spectrally modulate the QD emission wavelength. In the MZI, SAWs imprint a time-dependent optical phase and modulate the qubit rotation to the output superposition state. This enables dynamic single photon routing with frequencies exceeding one gigahertz. Finally, the combination of the dynamic single photon control and spectral tuning of the QD realizes wavelength multiplexing of the input photon state and demultiplexing it at the output. Our approach is scalable to multi-component integrated quantum photonic circuits and is compatible with hybrid photonic architectures and other key components for instance photonic resonators or on-chip detectors.

Acoustically induced coherent spin trapping

Spin centers are promising qubits for quantum technologies. Here, we show that the acoustic manipulation of spin qubits in their electronic excited state provides an approach for coherent spin control inaccessible so far. We demonstrate a giant interaction between the strain field of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) and the excited-state spin of silicon vacancies in silicon carbide, which is about two orders of magnitude stronger than in the ground state. The simultaneous spin driving in the ground and excited states with the same SAW leads to the trapping of the spin along a direction given by the frequency detuning from the corresponding spin resonances. The coherence of the spin-trapped states becomes only limited by relaxation processes intrinsic to the ground state. The coherent acoustic manipulation of spins in the ground and excited state provides new opportunities for efficient on-chip quantum information protocols and coherent sensing.