The LowT Lab has recently reported on the Journal of the American Chemical Society a study
concerning the transfer of spin coherence betweeen electronic and nuclear spins on molecular spin
centers. This achievement is part of the research of the Lab on spins for quantum technologies, and it
addresses the problem of efficiently interfacing spin degrees of freedom having much different energy
scale and lifetime: the electrons and nuclei within the same molecule.
The image reported here, which was also selected as one of the journal covers, sketches this link
between electronic (blue) and nuclear (green) spins of the vanadyl paddlewheel [VOPt(SOCPh)4]
(S=1/2, I=7/2) molecules used.
Take a look to the paper “Storage and Retrieval of Electronic Spin Coherence Using Nuclear Spins in a
Vanadyl Paddlewheel” to discover how microwave and radiofrequency pulses were used to store the
electronic phase coherence into nuclear spins and, then, to retrieve it after a total time greatly
exceeding the electronic phase memory time.