Sommaire:

The negatively charged Nitrogen Vacancy (NV−) center in diamond has emerged as a very efficient source of single photons and a promising candidate for quantum control and sensing via its electron spin. Recently, there has been much interest in the electronic spin of the NV− center in levitating diamonds. This interest is partly motivated by proposals for hybrid optomechanics, and implications in ultrahigh force sensitivity where the NV center’s spin response to magnetic fields is exploited to read-out the motion of the diamond with high spatial resolution under ambient conditions. Amongst the many levitation schemes, optical traps are the most widely used. They provide efficient localisation for neutral and charged particles and can work under liquid or atmospheric environnements. However the trap light that is scattered from the object means that excessive heating can be at work.

A solution to particle heating is to use scattering-free traps, such as ion traps. In this seminar, a study of the properties of diamonds that are levitating in a Paul trap will be presented. Using the inherent quantization axis of NV centers, we have shown that the angle of the diamond is stable over long time scales, a prerequisite for hybrid-optomechanics. Working under low vacuum pressures, we used the spin of NV centers to measure the diamond temperature and demonstrated trapping down to 10^-2 mbar. These important characterisation steps show the potential of NV centers as probes of levitating objects and demonstrate the potential of Paul traps for hybrid-opto-mechanical studies.

Pour plus d'informations, merci de contacter Dréau A.