Zero bias field selective transition adressing of the NV center via pulse shaping

Abstract

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are a leading platform for vector magnetometry, offering intrinsic sensitivity to both the magnitude and direction of magnetic fields. NV magnetometers typically rely on an external bias field to lift the degeneracy of the ground-state spin sublevels, enabling spectral discrimination of different NV orientations and spin transitions. At high accuracy, however, such a bias field systematically introduces errors through thermal, mechanical, and hysteretic drifts, thus hindering the accurate measurement of the magnetic field of interest. Several strategies have been proposed to address this limitation, including optical polarization-based orientation labeling, optical anisotropy, strong coupling to nearby nuclear spins, circular microwave polarization, and tailored pulse sequences. In this work, we introduce an optimization-based pulse-shaping control framework that enables selective and robust manipulation of NV ensembles without relying on a static bias field. Our method achieves both orientation-selective and subspace-selective control through optimal temporal modulation of the driving fields, providing a route to resolving spectral overlaps in degenerate NV systems.