Tuning Boron-Vacancy Qubit Coherence through Layer Number in hBN

Abstract

The negatively charged boron vacancy ($\VB$) in hexagonal boron nitride (\hBN{}) was the first optically addressable spin qubit identified inside a van der Waals crystal, allowing atomically defined placement relative to a target. Its coherence in bulk \hBN{} is limited by the boron nuclei of the layers flanking the defect plane, which a thin flake removes. Here, we use a generalized cluster-correlation expansion with an extended central-spin block to calculate the Hahn-echo coherence time of $\VB$ in h$^{11}$B$^{15}$N as a function of layer number. Our results show that $T_2$ rises from $199\ns$ in the bulk limit to $653\ns$ in a monolayer, a factor of $3.3$ that is already saturated at three layers and that a sublattice decomposition attributes entirely to boron. The enhancement is confined to low field, is insensitive to stacking registry and twist angle, and requires alignment to within about two degrees, an onset we reproduce with no free parameters. Under dynamical decoupling, a $1/e$ threshold returns $206\ns$ for every thickness, but this is a zero of the first-shell modulation rather than a decay: measured without a threshold, the layer contrast survives and reaches a factor of $170$. Layer number thus emerges as a design parameter for $\VB$-based sensing.