Robust Dynamical Decoupling for Arbitrary Quantum States of a Single NV Center in Diamond

Dynamical decoupling is a powerful technique for extending the coherence time (T$_2$) of qubits. We apply this technique to the electron spin qubit of a single nitrogen-vacancy center in type IIa diamond. In a crystal with natural abundance of $^{13}$C nuclear spins, we extend the decoherence time up to 2.2 ms. This is close to the T$_1$ value of this NV center (4 ms). Since dynamical decoupling must perform well for arbitrary initial conditions, we measured the dependence on the initial state and compared the performance of different sequences with respect to initial state dependence and robustness to experimental imperfections.