  The excited orbitals of color centers typically show stronger electric
dipoles, which can serve as a resource for entanglement, emission tuning, or
electric field sensing. Here, we use resonant laser excitation to expose strong
transition dipoles in the excited state (ES) orbitals of the negatively charged
nitrogen vacancy center in diamond. By applying microwave electric fields, we
perform strong Rabi driving between ES orbitals, and show that the dressed
states can be tuned in frequency and are protected against fluctuations of the
transverse electric field. In contrast with previous results, we observe sharp
microwave resonances between magnetic states of the ES orbitals, and find that
they are broadened due to simultaneous electric dipole driving.
