Dressed spin states in a silicon vacancy center in diamond via surface acoustic waves

The electron spin of the negatively charged silicon vacancy (SiV-) center in diamond exhibits a strong susceptibility to strain in the lattice. Its spin levels can be coherently driven by resonant surface acoustic waves (SAWs) at Rabi rates that far exceed those demonstrated with traditional microwave coherent control. We demonstrate Rabi rates of >300MHz on a ~3.5GHz SiV- spin transition using an integrated SAW device. By applying the SAW as a quasi-continuous wave drive, we create optically distinguishable and initializable dressed spin states. We coherently drive the dressed spin states via a weaker probing SAW field and explore the possibilities created by this new regime, including changes to the SiV- spin's sensitivity to environmental noise.