Magnetic-field dependent VB- spin decoherence in hexagonal boron nitrides: A first-principles study

Abstract: The negatively charged boron vacancy (VB-) in h-BN operates as an optically addressable spin qubit in two-dimensional materials. To further advance the spin into a versatile qubit platform, it is imperative to understand its spin decoherence precisely, which is currently one of the major limiting factors for the VB- spin. In this study, we employ a first-principles quantum many-body simulation to investigate the decoherence of the VB- spin in dense nuclear spin baths as a function of magnetic field from 100 G to 3 T, revealing several unique phenomena and their origin. We found that decoherence mechanism changes at a specific magnetic field, which we refer to as the transition boundary (TB). Below the TB, the decoherence occurs within submicrosecond and it is primarily governed by independent nuclear spin dynamics. Above the TB, pair-wise flip-flop transitions become the dominant decoherence source, leading to the decoherence time of tens of microseconds. Building upon this understanding, we developed a method to predict the TB depending on the isotopic composition of h-BN, leading to TBs at 5020 G for h-10B14N and 2050 G for h-11B14N, which is in excellent agreement with our numerical results. We show that the larger TB in h-10BN derives from the larger nuclear spin of 10B than that of 11B, giving rise to strong nuclear modulation effects over a wider range of magnetic field in 10BN than in 11BN. We also explain the microscopic origin of several unique features in the decoherence, such as magnetic-field insensitive fast modulation found below the TB. Our results provide essential insight on the role of the 100% dense nuclear spin environment with large nuclear spins in the VB- decoherence, opening a new avenue for advancing the spin qubit in h-BN as robust platform in quantum information science.