Coherent population trapping is demonstrated in single nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond under optical excitation. For sufficient excitation power, the fluorescence intensity drops almost to the background level when the laser modulation frequency matches the 2.88 GHz splitting of the ground states. The results are well described theoretically by a four-level model, allowing the relative transition strengths to be determined for individual centers. The results show that all-optical control of single spins is possible in diamond.
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0607147,
title = {Coherent Population Trapping of Single Spins in Diamond Under Optical Excitation},
author = {Charles Santori and Philippe Tamarat and Philipp Neumann and Jorg Wrachtrup and David Fattal and Raymond G. Beausoleil and James Rabeau and Paolo Olivero and Andrew Greentree and Steven Prawer and Fedor Jelezko and Philip Hemmer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0607147},
year = {2009}
}