Cavity-enhanced solid-state nuclear spin gyroscope
Hanfeng Wang, Shuang Wu, Kurt Jacobs, Yuqin Duan, Dirk R Englund, Matthew E Trusheim
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
2. Honda Research Institute USA, Inc., San Jose, CA 95134, USA
3. U.S. Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD 20783, USA
4. Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02125, USA
Physical Review Letters 134 (18), 183603, 2025
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2502.01769
Solid-state quantum sensors based on ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have emerged as powerful tools for precise sensing applications. Nuclear spin sensors are particularly well suited for applications requiring long coherence times, such as inertial sensing, but remain underexplored due to control complexity and limited optical readout efficiency. In this work, we propose cooperative cavity quantum electrodynamic (cQED) coupling to achieve efficient nuclear spin readout. Unlike previous cQED methods used to enhance electron spin readout, here we employ two-field interference in the NV hyperfine subspace to directly probe the nuclear spin transitions. We model the nuclear spin NV-cQED system (nNV-cQED) and observe several distinct regimes, including electromagnetically induced transparency, masing without inversion, and oscillatory behavior. We then evaluate the nNV-cQED system as an inertial sensor, indicating a rotation sensitivity improved by 3 orders of magnitude compared to previous solid-state spin demonstrations. Furthermore, we show that the NV electron spin can be simultaneously used as a comagnetometer, and the four crystallographic axes of NVs can be employed for vector resolution in a single nNV-cQED system. These results showcase the applications of two-field interference using the nNV-cQED platform, providing critical insights into the manipulation and control of quantum states in hybrid NV systems and unlocking new possibilities for high-performance quantum sensing.
FIG. 1. Two-eld interference in nNV-cQED. (a) Top: NV crystal structure. Bottom: diamond with NVs rotates with rate R = {Rx, Ry , Rz }. (b) NV energy level structure. The transition |1⟩ ↔ |e⟩ is coupled to the cavity mode for the cavity-enhanced readout. A driving eld Ω2 is applied between the spin-exchanging transition |2⟩ ↔ |e⟩. (c) Hybrid system with a microwave resonator and an NV spin ensemble. A green laser is applied to continuously polarize the NV spin to the |ms = 0⟩, and a detection loop is incorporated to measure the re ection signal from the resonator. (d) |α0|2 as a function of detuning ∆/κ within strong coupling regime. An EIT feature appears around the resonant frequency. (e) Top: Im(σ1e) as a function of Ω2. The EIT (MWI) regime features a negative (positive) Im(σ1e). Bottom: Time dynamics of Im(α). (f) α0 as a function of P and Ω2. The solid line indicates the perfect EIT condition. The boundary of the oscillation regime is marked as a white line.