Suppressing Spectral Diffusion of Emitted Photons with Optical Pulses

H. F. Fotso, A. E. Feiguin, D. D. Awschalom, and V. V. Dobrovitski

Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 033603 – Published 22 January 2016

Abstract

In many quantum architectures the solid-state qubits, such as quantum dots or color centers, are interfaced via emitted photons. However, the frequency of photons emitted by solid-state systems exhibits slow uncontrollable fluctuations over time (spectral diffusion), creating a serious problem for implementation of the photon-mediated protocols. Here we show that a sequence of optical pulses applied to the solid-state emitter can stabilize the emission line at the desired frequency. We demonstrate efficiency, robustness, and feasibility of the method analytically and numerically. Taking nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond as an example, we show that only several pulses, with the width of 1 ns, separated by few ns (which is not difficult to achieve) can suppress spectral diffusion. Our method provides a simple and robust way to greatly improve the efficiency of photon-mediated entanglement and/or coupling to photonic cavities for solid-state qubits.

Received 5 June 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.033603

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Hybrid quantum systems Luminescence Open quantum systems & decoherence Photoemission Quantum control Quantum error correction

Quantum Information, Science & TechnologyAtomic, Molecular & OpticalCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

H. F. Fotso¹, A. E. Feiguin², D. D. Awschalom³, and V. V. Dobrovitski^4,*

¹Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
²Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
³Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
⁴Ames Laboratory US DOE, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA