In a solid-state spin system, we experimentally demonstrate a protocol for quantum-state population transfer with an improved efficiency compared to traditional stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). Using the ground state triplet of the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond, we show that the required evolution time for highfidelity state transfer can be reduced by almost one order of magnitude. Furthermore, we establish an improved robustness against frequency detuning caused by magnetic noise as compared to STIRAP. These results provide a powerful tool for coherent spin manipulation in the context of quantum sensing and quantum computation.

Reference: Musang Gong, Min Yu, Ralf Betzholz, Yaoming Chu, Pengcheng Yang, Zhenyu Wang and Jianming Cai, https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.107.L040602