In this work, we optimize a dynamical decoupling (DD) protocol to improve the spin coherence properties of a dense ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. Using liquid nitrogen-based cooling and DD microwave pulses, we increase the transverse coherence time T₂ from ∼ 0.7 ms up to ∼ 30 ms. We extend previous work of single-axis (Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill) DD towards the preservation of arbitrary spin states. After performing a detailed analysis of pulse and detuning errors, we compare the performance of various DD protocols. We identify that the concatenated XY8 pulse sequences serves as the optimal control scheme for preserving an arbitrary spin state. Finally, we use the concatenated sequences to demonstrate an immediate improvement of the AC magnetic sensitivity up to a factor of two at 250 kHz. For future work, similar protocols may be used to increase coherence times up to NV-NV interaction time scales, a major step toward the creation of quantum collective NV spin states.

Date Published: 29 April 2016
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9900, Quantum Optics, 99000N (29 April 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2227479

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9900:
Quantum Optics
Jürgen Stuhler; Andrew J. Shields, Editor(s)