The silicon-vacancy center in diamond offers attractive opportunities in quantum photonics due to its favorable optical properties and optically addressable electronic spin. Here, we combine both to achieve all-optical coherent control of its spin states. We utilize this method to explore spin dephasing effects in an impurity-rich sample beyond the limit of phonon-induced decoherence: Employing Ramsey and Hahn-echo techniques at 12mK base temperature we identify resonant coupling to a substitutional nitrogen spin bath as the limiting decoherence source for the electron spin.
@article{arxiv.1708.08263,
title = {All-optical control of the silicon-vacancy spin in diamond at millikelvin temperatures},
author = {Jonas Nils Becker and Benjamin Pingault and David Groß and Mustafa Gündoğan and Nadezhda Kukharchyk and Matthew Markham and Andrew Edmonds and Mete Atatüre and Pavel Bushev and Christoph Becher},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.08263},
year = {2018}
}