Single photon emission and single spin coherence of a nitrogen vacancy centre encapsulated in silicon nitride

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that nitrogen vacancy centres embedded in nanodiamonds within silicon nitride maintain their quantum optical and spin properties, enabling scalable integrated quantum photonic circuits.

Contribution

It shows that nitrogen-rich silicon nitride is a suitable platform for quantum photonics with preserved NV centre properties after encapsulation.

Findings

NV centres preserve quantum optical properties

NV centres maintain spin coherence post-encapsulation

Silicon nitride supports integrated quantum photonic components

Abstract

Finding the right material platform for engineering efficient photonic interfaces to solid state emitters has been a long-standing bottleneck for scaling up solid state quantum systems. In this work, we demonstrate that nitrogen-rich silicon nitride, with its low background auto-fluorescence at visible wavelengths, is a viable quantum photonics platform by showing that nitrogen vacancy centres embedded in nanodiamonds preserve both their quantum optical and spin properties post-encapsulation. Given the variety of high-performance photonic components already demonstrated in silicon nitride, our work opens up a new avenue for building integrated photonic circuits using solid state emitters.