Materials Science and Engineering Commons^™

Optically Pumped Spin Polarization As A Probe Of Many-Body Thermalization, Daniela Pagliero, Pablo R. Zangara, Jacob Henshaw, Ashok Ajoy, Rodolfo H. Acosta, Jeffrey A. Reimer, Alexander Pines, Carlos A. Meriles

Publications and Research

Disorder and many body interactions are known to impact transport and thermalization in competing ways, with the dominance of one or the other giving rise to fundamentally different dynamical phases. Here we investigate the spin diffusion dynamics of ¹³C in diamond, which we dynamically polarize at room temperature via optical spin pumping of engineered color centers. We focus on low-abundance, strongly hyperfine-coupled nuclei, whose role in the polarization transport we expose through the integrated impact of variable radio-frequency excitation on the observable bulk ¹³C magnetic resonance signal. Unexpectedly, we find good thermal contact throughout the nuclear spin bath, …