Protected Quantum Computing: Interleaving Gate Operations with Dynamical Decoupling Sequences

Implementing precise operations on quantum systems is one of the biggest challenges for building quantum devices in a noisy environment. Dynamical decoupling attenuates the destructive effect of the environmental noise, but so far, it has been used primarily in the context of quantum memories. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a general scheme for combining dynamical decoupling with quantum logical gate operations using the example of an electron-spin qubit of a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond. We achieve process fidelities > 98% for gate times that are 2 orders of magnitude longer than the unprotected dephasing time T-2.