Demonstration of entanglement-by-measurement of solid-state qubits

Projective measurements are a powerful tool for manipulating quantum states. In particular, a set of qubits can be entangled by measuring a joint property such as qubit parity. These joint measurements do not require a direct interaction between qubits and therefore provide a unique resource for quantum information processing with well-isolated qubits. Numerous schemes for entanglement-by-measurement of solid-state qubits have been proposed, but the demanding experimental requirements have so far hindered implementations. Here we realize a two-qubit parity measurement on nuclear spins localized near a nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond by exploiting an electron spin as a readout ancilla. The measurement enables us to project the initially uncorrelated nuclear spins into maximally entangled states. By combining this entanglement with single-shot readout we demonstrate the first violation of Bell's inequality with solid-state spins. These results introduce a new class of experiments in which projective measurements create, protect and manipulate entanglement between solid-state qubits.