Floquet-engineered quantum state preparation in a noisy qubit

Noise and decoherence caused by the environment are two major challenges in applying adiabatic protocols to quantum technologies. Counter-diabatic (CD) and fast-forward (FF) driving protocols, which are also known as ``shortcuts-to-adiabaticity," provide powerful alternatives by allowing one to change Hamiltonian parameters rapidly while still mimicking adiabatic dynamics. However, implementing exact CD or FF driving in complex systems is hard in general. In this work, we propose a new efficient and generic method of Floquet engineered FF protocols, which effectively realize CD driving. We report on its experimental realization in a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond. Our protocol achieves near unit fidelity with our target state for fast protocols when our system is driven periodically at high frequency. Moreover, we find experimentally that our Floquet-engineered protocols are less susceptible to decoherence than standard fast forward protocols and allow us to reach near perfect fidelity even in the presence of a strong external noise.