A single Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) center hosted in a diamond nanocrystal is positioned at the extremity of a SiC nanowire. This novel hybrid system couples the degrees of freedom of two radically different systems, i.e. a nanomechanical oscillator and a single quantum object. The dynamics of the nano-resonator is probed through time resolved nanocrystal fluorescence and photon correlation measurements, conveying the influence of a mechanical degree of freedom given to a non-classical photon emitter. Moreover, by immersing the system in a strong magnetic field gradient, we induce a magnetic coupling between the nanomechanical oscillator and the NV electronic spin, providing nanomotion readout through a single electronic spin. Spin-dependent forces inherent to this coupling scheme are essential in a variety of active cooling and entanglement protocols used in atomic physics, and should now be within the reach of nanomechanical hybrid systems.
@article{arxiv.1112.1291,
title = {A single NV defect coupled to a nanomechanical oscillator},
author = {Olivier Arcizet and Vincent Jacques and Alessandro Siria and Philippe Poncharal and Pascal Vincent and Signe Seidelin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.1291},
year = {2011}
}