UC San Diego

We propose an efficient quantum measurement protocol for the hyperfine interaction between the electron spin and the $^{15}$N nuclear spin of a diamond nitrogen-vacancy center. In this protocol, a sequence of quantum operations of successively increasing duration is utilized to estimate the hyperfine interaction with successively higher precision approaching the quantum metrology limit. This protocol does not need the preparation of the nuclear spin state. In the presence of realistic operation errors and electron spin decoherence, the overall precision of our protocol still surpasses the standard quantum limit.