Solid-state spin defects are a promising platform for quantum networks. A key requirement is to combine long ground-state spin-coherence times with a coherent optical transition for spin-photon entanglement. Here, we investigate the spin and optical coherence of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in (111)-grown isotopically engineered diamond. Our diamond-growth process yields a precisely controlled 13C concentration and low-ppb nitrogen concentrations. Combined with the mitigation of 50 Hz noise using a real-time feedforward scheme and tailored decoupling sequences, this enables record defect-electron-spin coherence times of T2=6.8(1) ms for a Hahn echo and of T2DD=11.2(8) s under dynamical decoupling. In addition, we observe coherent optical transitions with a near-lifetime-limited homogeneous linewidth of 16.9(4) MHz and characterize the spectral diffusion dynamics. These results provide new avenues to investigate the incorporation of impurities in diamond and new opportunities for improved spin-qubit control for quantum networks and other quantum technologies.
@article{arxiv.2604.07439,
title = {Ten-Second Electron-Spin Coherence in Isotopically Engineered Diamond},
author = {Takashi Yamamoto and H. Benjamin van Ommen and Kai-Niklas Schymik and Beer de Zoeten and Shinobu Onoda and Seiichi Saiki and Takeshi Ohshima and Hadi Arjmandi-Tash and René Vollmer and Tim H. Taminiau},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.07439},
year = {2026}
}