Fabrication and Characterization of Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Microcavities in Nanocrystalline Diamond

TL;DR

This paper reports the fabrication and optical characterization of high-quality nanocrystalline diamond photonic crystal microcavities, achieving high Q factors near the N-V center emission wavelength, advancing room-temperature quantum photonics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel fabrication process for diamond-based photonic crystal microcavities with high Q factors and validates the results with FDTD simulations and polarization analysis.

Findings

Achieved Q factors up to 585 near 637 nm

FDTD simulations matched experimental mode frequencies

Polarization measurements revealed anomalous scattering behavior

Abstract

Diamond-based photonic devices offer exceptional opportunity to study cavity QED at room temperature. Here we report fabrication and optical characterization of high quality photonic crystal (PC) microcavities based on nanocrystalline diamond. Fundamental modes near the emission wavelength of negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (N-V) centers (637 nm) with quality factors (Qs) as high as 585 were observed. Three-dimensional Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) simulations were carried out and had excellent agreement with experimental results in the values of the mode frequencies. Polarization measurements of the modes were characterized; their anomalous behavior provides important insights to scattering loss in these structures.