PME Special Seminar: Zhiran Zhang, U.C. Santa Barbara

When:
Wednesday, May 1, 2024 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Where:
ERC 201B, William Eckhardt Research Center, 5640 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL
Speaker:
Zhiran Zhang, Ph.D. Candidate, University of California Santa Barbara
Title:
Diamond defect-based sensing of programmable patterned molecular spin arrays with single-spin sensitivity
Description:

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are a prominent example of solid-state spin qubits for applications in quantum information. However, the assembly of solid-state spins, including NVs or auxiliary spins near the diamond surface, with a controlled nanoscale spatial precision is still an outstanding challenge. Consequently, the pathway towards scaling up quantum simulation and entanglement-enhanced sensing using NVs remains unclear. In this presentation, I will present our recent progress, where we combine a DNA-based patterning technique with NV centers in diamond to sense 2D arrays of molecular spins programmably patterned via a monolayer of DNA origami on a diamond surface. We control the spacing of chelated Gd3+ spins down to 6 nm precision and verify this control by observing a linear relationship between proximal NVs’ T1 relaxation rate and the designated number of Gd3+ spins per origami unit. We confirm the preservation of the charge state and spin coherence of the proximal, shallow NV centers and discuss ongoing work towards probing ordered, strongly interacting 2D spin networks on the diamond surface.

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