Tin-Vacancy Quantum Emitters in Diamond

TL;DR

This paper reports the creation and characterization of tin-vacancy (SnV) centers in diamond, revealing their optical properties, high ground state splitting, and potential as quantum emitters at room and cryogenic temperatures.

Contribution

It demonstrates the fabrication of SnV centers in diamond via ion implantation and annealing, and provides detailed optical and theoretical analysis of their properties.

Findings

SnV centers exhibit a sharp zero phonon line at 619 nm.

The ground state splitting is approximately 850 GHz at cryogenic temperatures.

The excited state lifetime of SnV centers is about 5 ns.

Abstract

Tin-vacancy (SnV) color centers were created in diamond by ion implantation and subsequent high temperature annealing up to 2100 {\deg}C at 7.7 GPa. The first-principles calculation suggests that the large atom of tin can be incorporated into the diamond lattice with a split-vacancy configuration, in which a tin atom sits on an interstitial site with two neighboring vacancies. The SnV center shows a sharp zero phonon line at 619 nm at room temperature. This line splits into four peaks at cryogenic temperatures with a larger ground state splitting of ~850 GHz than those of color centers based on other IV group elements, silicon-vacancy (SiV) and germanium vacancy (GeV) centers. The excited state lifetime was estimated to be ~5 ns by Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometry measurements on single SnV quantum emitters. The order of the experimentally obtained optical transition energies comparing with the SiV and GeV centers is good agreement with the theoretical calculations.