Readout and control of an endofullerene electronic spin.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33335106.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-20202-3 and PMC identifier 7746685.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Atomic spins for quantum technologies need to be individually addressed and positioned with nanoscale precision. C<sub>60</sub> fullerene cages offer a robust packaging for atomic spins, while allowing in-situ physical positioning at the nanoscale. However, achieving single-spin level readout and control of endofullerenes has so far remained elusive. In this work, we demonstrate electron paramagnetic resonance on an encapsulated nitrogen spin (<sup>14</sup>N@C<sub>60</sub>) within a C<sub>60</sub> matrix using a single near-surface nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond at 4.7 K. Exploiting the strong magnetic dipolar interaction between the NV and endofullerene electronic spins, we demonstrate radio-frequency pulse controlled Rabi oscillations and measure spin-echos on an encapsulated spin. Modeling the results using second-order perturbation theory reveals an enhanced hyperfine interaction and zero-field splitting, possibly caused by surface adsorption on diamond. These results demonstrate the first step towards controlling single endofullerenes, and possibly building large-scale endofullerene quantum machines, which can be scaled using standard positioning or self-assembly methods.