Deterministic formation of highly coherent nitrogen-vacancy centers using a focused electron irradiation technique

TL;DR

This paper presents a precise method for creating highly coherent nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond using focused electron irradiation, enabling advanced quantum sensing and information applications.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel three-dimensional, patterned NV center formation technique with high coherence times, combining nitrogen doping and electron irradiation.

Findings

NV centers with coherence times over 1 ms

Lateral confinement of vacancies to less than 1 μm

Effective formation of high-quality NV centers inside nanostructures

Abstract

We demonstrate fully three-dimensional and patterned localization of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond with coherence times in excess of 1 ms. Nitrogen {\delta}-doping during CVD diamond growth vertically confines nitrogen to 4 nm while electron irradiation with a transmission electron microscope (TEM) laterally confines vacancies to less than 1 {\mu}m. We characterize the effects of electron energy and dose on NV formation. Importantly, our technique enables the formation of reliably high-quality NV centers inside diamond nanostructures, with applications in quantum information and sensing.