Efficient polarization of organic molecules is of extraordinary relevance when performing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and imaging. Commercially available routes to dynamical nuclear polarization ...(DNP) work at extremely low temperatures, relying on the solidification of organic samples and thus bringing the molecules out of their ambient thermal conditions. In this work, we investigate polarization transfer from optically pumped nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond to external molecules at room temperature. This polarization transfer is described by both an extensive analytical analysis and numerical simulations based on spin bath bosonization and is supported by experimental data in excellent agreement. These results set the route to hyperpolarization of diffusive molecules in different scenarios and consequently, due to an increased signal, to high-resolution NMR.
Nanometer-sized diamonds containing nitrogen-vacancy defect centers (NV) are promising nanosensors in biological environments due to their biocompatibility, bright fluorescence, and high magnetic ...sensitivity at ambient conditions. Here we report on the detection of ferritin molecules using magnetic noise induced by the inner paramagnetic iron as a contrast mechanism. We observe a significant reduction of both coherence and relaxation time due to the presence of ferritin on the surface of nanodiamonds. Our theoretical model is in excellent agreement with the experimental data and establishes this method as a novel sensing technology for proteins.
Precision sensing, and in particular high precision magnetometry, is a central goal of research into quantum technologies. For magnetometers, often trade-offs exist between sensitivity, spatial ...resolution, and frequency range. The precision, and thus the sensitivity of magnetometry, scales as 1/sqrtT_{2} with the phase coherence time T_{2} of the sensing system playing the role of a key determinant. Adapting a dynamical decoupling scheme that allows for extending T_{2} by orders of magnitude and merging it with a magnetic sensing protocol, we achieve a measurement sensitivity even for high frequency fields close to the standard quantum limit. Using a single atomic ion as a sensor, we experimentally attain a sensitivity of 4.6 pT/sqrtHz for an alternating-current magnetic field near 14 MHz. Based on the principle demonstrated here, this unprecedented sensitivity combined with spatial resolution in the nanometer range and tunability from direct current to the gigahertz range could be used for magnetic imaging in as of yet inaccessible parameter regimes.
Measuring heat flow through nanoscale devices poses formidable practical difficulties as there is no "ampere meter" for heat. We propose to overcome this problem in a chain of trapped ions, where ...laser cooling the chain edges to different temperatures induces a heat current of local vibrations (vibrons). We show how to efficiently control and measure this current, including fluctuations, by coupling vibrons to internal ion states. This demonstrates that ion crystals provide an ideal platform for studying quantum transport, e.g., through thermal analogues of quantum wires and quantum dots. Notably, ion crystals may give access to measurements of the elusive bosonic fluctuations in heat currents and the onset of Fourier's law. Our results are strongly supported by numerical simulations for a realistic implementation with specific ions and system parameters.
We revisit the question of the relation between entanglement, entropy, and area for harmonic lattice Hamiltonians corresponding to discrete versions of real free Klein-Gordon fields. For the ground ...state of the d-dimensional cubic harmonic lattice we establish a strict relationship between the surface area of a distinguished hypercube and the degree of entanglement between the hypercube and the rest of the lattice analytically, without resorting to numerical means. We outline extensions of these results to longer ranged interactions, finite temperatures, and for classical correlations in classical harmonic lattice systems. These findings further suggest that the tools of quantum information science may help in establishing results in quantum field theory that were previously less accessible.
When traversing a symmetry-breaking second-order phase transition at a finite rate, topological defects form whose number dependence on the quench rate is given by simple power laws. We propose a ...general approach for the derivation of such scaling laws that is based on the analytical transformation of the associated equations of motion to a universal form rather than employing plausible physical arguments. We demonstrate the power of this approach by deriving the scaling of the number of topological defects in both homogeneous and nonhomogeneous settings. The general nature and extensions of this approach are discussed.
We derive rigorous truncation-error bounds for the spin-boson model and its generalizations to arbitrary quantum systems interacting with bosonic baths. For the numerical simulation of such baths, ...the truncation of both the number of modes and the local Hilbert-space dimensions is necessary. We derive superexponential Lieb-Robinson-type bounds on the error when restricting the bath to finitely many modes and show how the error introduced by truncating the local Hilbert spaces may be efficiently monitored numerically. In this way we give error bounds for approximating the infinite system by a finite-dimensional one. As a consequence, numerical simulations such as the time-evolving density with orthogonal polynomials algorithm (TEDOPA) now allow for the fully certified treatment of the system-environment interaction.
Selective control of qubits in a quantum register for the purposes of quantum information processing represents a critical challenge for dense spin ensembles in solid-state systems. Here we present a ...protocol that achieves a complete set of selective electron-nuclear gates and single nuclear rotations in such an ensemble in diamond facilitated by a nearby nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center. The protocol suppresses internuclear interactions as well as unwanted coupling between the NV center and other spins of the ensemble to achieve quantum gate fidelities well exceeding 99%. Notably, our method can be applied to weakly coupled, distant spins representing a scalable procedure that exploits the exceptional properties of nuclear spins in diamond as robust quantum memories.
PDF
