Sustained macroscopic quantum coherence in a superradiant solid under ambient conditions

Abstract

Macroscopic quantum coherence, such as in laser, Bose-Einstein condensates, superfluids, and superconductors, is important to fundamental physics and useful for quantum technologies. Superradiance provides a mechanism to produce coherence among a large number of particles and photons. Its implementation, however, has been limited to gaseous systems, solids at very low temperature, or short pulses. Here we demonstrate a solid-state superradiant maser under ambient conditions, which establishes long-lived coherence among about $10^{14}$ nitrogen-vacancy center spins in diamond and about $10^9$ photons in a microwave cavity. By varying the system parameters to access the above-threshold, well-above-threshold, and deep-above-threshold regimes, we observed continuous-wave masing, periodic amplitude modulation, and sequences of superradiant bursts, which are attributed, correspondingly, to macroscopic spin coherence synchronized at a fixed frequency, a coherent time crystal of large spins, and unsynchronized superradiant transients. This work demonstrates that macroscopic quantum coherence can be spontaneously generated and maintained in solids under ambient conditions and provides a solid-state platform for exploring bright quantum lights with many-body correlations.