Isotope engineering for spin defects in van der Waals materials

Spin defects in van der Waals materials offer a promising platform for advancing quantum technologies. Here, we propose and demonstrate a powerful technique based on isotope engineering of host materials to significantly enhance the coherence properties of embedded spin defects. Focusing on the recently-discovered negatively charged boron vacancy center (VB−) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), we grow isotopically purified h¹⁰B¹⁵N crystals. Compared to VB− in hBN with the natural distribution of isotopes, we observe substantially narrower and less crowded VB− spin transitions as well as extended coherence time T ₂ and relaxation time T ₁. For quantum sensing, VB− centers in our h¹⁰B¹⁵N samples exhibit a factor of 4 (2) enhancement in DC (AC) magnetic field sensitivity. For additional quantum resources, the individual addressability of the VB− hyperfine levels enables the dynamical polarization and coherent control of the three nearest-neighbor ¹⁵N nuclear spins. Our results demonstrate the power of isotope engineering for enhancing the properties of quantum spin defects in hBN, and can be readily extended to improving spin qubits in a broad family of van der Waals materials.