Electronic structure and properties of a spin qubit based on SnV center in diamond

Negatively charged tin-vacancy (SnV) defects in diamond hold much potential for quantum communication and modular quantum computation due to their excellent spin-photonic properties, high operating temperatures (above 1 K), and the possibility for integration into nanophotonic structures. However, recent experiments [1,2] have demonstrated that understanding of many physical properties of the qubits employing the spin of SnV centers is still lacking.

We investigated electronic structure and spin properties of the qubits based on SnV centers, taking into account the interplay between vibronic interactions, spin-orbit coupling, strain, and the resulting response of SnV spin to magnetic fields. We take into account the critical contribution of the excited vibronic states of the SnV center and their contribution to the spin and orbital angular momentum. In this way, we derived an effective reduced model for the spin qubits based on SnV centers. Besides, we show that non-adiabatic corrections to the Jahn-Teller dynamics in this model open a new channel of dephasing of SnV-based qubits.

[1] E. I. Rosenthal, C. P. Anderson, H. C. Kleidermacher, A. J. Stein, H. Lee, J. Grzesik, G. Scuri, A. E. Rugar, D. Riedel, S. Aghaeimeibodi, G. H. Ahn, K. Van Gasse, and J. Vuckovic, Phys. Rev. X 13, 031022 (2023).

[2] X. Guo, A. M. Stramma, Z. Li, W. G. Roth, B. Huang, Y. Jin, R. A. Parker, J. A. Martínez, N. Shofer, C. P. Michaels, C. P. Purser, M. H. Appel, E. M. Alexeev, T. Liu, A. C. Ferrari, D. D. Awschalom, N. Delegan, B. Pingault, G. Galli, F. J. Heremans, M. Atature, and A. A. High, Phys. Rev. X, accepted, (2023).