The nitrogen-vacancy colour centre in diamond

TL;DR

This review consolidates the current understanding of the nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond, highlighting recent empirical and ab initio findings, unresolved issues, and future research directions for its applications in quantum technologies.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive synthesis of key empirical and ab initio results on the NV centre, clarifying its physics and identifying unresolved questions.

Findings

Key empirical and ab initio results compiled

Current understanding of NV centre physics clarified

Unresolved issues and future research avenues identified

Abstract

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) colour centre in diamond is an important physical system for emergent quantum technologies, including quantum metrology, information processing and communications, as well as for various nanotechnologies, such as biological and sub-diffraction limit imaging, and for tests of entanglement in quantum mechanics. Given this array of existing and potential applications and the almost 50 years of NV research, one would expect that the physics of the centre is well understood, however, the study of the NV centre has proved challenging, with many early assertions now believed false and many remaining issues yet to be resolved. This review represents the first time that the key empirical and ab initio results have been extracted from the extensive NV literature and assembled into one consistent picture of the current understanding of the centre. As a result, the key unresolved issues concerning the NV centre are identified and the possible avenues for their resolution are examined.