We experimentally demonstrate over 2 orders of magnitude increase in the room-temperature coherence time of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond by implementing decoupling techniques. We show that equal pulse spacing decoupling performs just as well as nonperiodic Uhrig decoupling and also allows us to take advantage of revivals in the echo to explore the longest coherence times. At short times, we can extend the coherence of particular quantum states out from $T_2^{*}=2.7\mu \mathrm{s}$ out to an effective $T_2>340\mu \mathrm{s}$. For preserving arbitrary states we show the experimental importance of using pulse sequences that compensate the imperfections of individual pulses for all input states through judicious choice of the phase of the pulses. We use these compensated sequences to enhance the echo revivals and show a coherence time of over 1.6 ms in ultrapure natural abundance ${}^{13}\mathrm{C}$ diamond.

• Received 12 August 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.200402