Sustaining Rabi oscillations by using a phase-tunable image drive

Recent electron spin resonance experiments on CaWO $$_4$$ 4 :Gd $$^{3+}$$ 3 + and other magnetic impurities have demonstrated that sustained Rabi oscillations can be created by driving a magnetic moment with a microwave field frequency slightly larger than the Larmor frequency and tuned to the Floquet resonance, together with another microwave field (image drive) with a frequency smaller than the Larmor frequency. These observations are confirmed by the new experimental results reported in this paper. We use numerical and analytical techniques to study the interplay between the microwave drives and three different mechanisms of relaxation. The first model describes a magnetic moment subject to microwave fields, interacting with a bath of two-level systems which acts as a source of decoherence and dissipation. The second model describes identical, interacting magnetic moments, subject to the same microwave fields. The decay of the Rabi oscillations is now due to the interactions. Third, we study Rabi oscillation decay due to the inhomogeneity of the microwave radiation. We show that under appropriate conditions, and in particular at the Floquet resonance, the magnetization exhibits sustained Rabi oscillations, in some cases with additional beatings. Although these two microscopic models separately describe the experimental data well, a simulation study that simultaneously accounts for both types of interactions is currently prohibitively costly. To gain further insight into the microscopic dynamics of these two different models, we study the time dependence of the bath and system energy and of the correlations of the spins, data that are not readily accessible experimentally. Graphic abstract