Accelerated quantum control using superadiabatic dynamics in a solid-state lambda system

Adiabatic processes are useful in quantum control, but they are slow. A way around this is to exploit shortcuts to adiabaticity, which can speed things up — for instance, by boosting stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. Adiabatic processes are useful for quantum technologies 1 , 2 , 3 but, despite their robustness to experimental imperfections, they remain susceptible to decoherence due to their long evolution time. A general strategy termed shortcuts to adiabaticity 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 (STA) aims to remedy this vulnerability by designing fast dynamics to reproduce the results of a slow, adiabatic evolution. Here, we implement an STA technique known as superadiabatic transitionless driving 10 (SATD) to speed up stimulated Raman adiabatic passage 1 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 in a solid-state lambda system. Using the optical transitions to a dissipative excited state in the nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond, we demonstrate the accelerated performance of different shortcut trajectories for population transfer and for the initialization and transfer of coherent superpositions. We reveal that SATD protocols exhibit robustness to dissipation and experimental uncertainty, and can be optimized when these effects are present. These results suggest that STA could be effective for controlling a variety of solid-state open quantum systems 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 .