Nuclear spins in solids exhibit long coherence times due to the small nuclear gyromagnetic ratio. This weak environmental coupling comes at the expense of slow quantum gate operations, which should be as fast as possible for many applications in quantum information processing and sensing. In this work we use nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond to probe the nuclear spins within dark paramagnetic nitrogen defects (P1 centers) in the diamond lattice. The gyromagnetic ratio of the P1 nuclear spin is augmented by hyperfine coupling to the electron spin, resulting in greatly enhanced coupling to radio frequency control fields. We then demonstrate that this effect can be tuned by variation of an external magnetic field. Our work identifies regimes in which we are able to implement fast quantum control of dark nuclear spins and lays the foundations for further inquiry into rapid control of long-lived spin qubits at room temperature.

• Received 13 October 2021
• Accepted 4 January 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.L020405