Demonstration of the quantum Zeno effect on the nitrogen vacancy center in nanodiamond

Already in 430 BC ancient Greek´s philosopher Zeno of Elea formulated his well known paradox: An object that can be observed at any instant of time at a well defined position can not move. Today, this paradox is solved by the infinitesimal calculus invented by Newton and Leibniz in the 18 century. Nevertheless in 1977 it was shown that Zeno´s paradox rises again from the formalism of quantum mechanics [1]. We present our latest measurement results on the quantum Zeno effect in a solid state spin, namely the ground state spin of a single negatively charged nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond [2]. These results are supported by an extended theoretical analysis and give evidence that the quantum Zeno effect is physical reality not only in atomic systems [3], but also in nanoscopic solid state systems [4].