Generation of Tin-Vacancy Centers in Diamond via Shallow Ion Implantation and Subsequent Diamond Overgrowth

TL;DR

This paper presents a new technique for creating precisely located tin-vacancy centers in diamond, combining shallow ion implantation with diamond overgrowth, enabling better integration with nanophotonic devices.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel method for site-controlled SnV$^-$ center generation that avoids surface damage and produces clean spectra, suitable for quantum device integration.

Findings

Successful creation of site-controlled SnV$^-$ centers in diamond.

Method yields high-quality bulk spectra without damage.

Technique is adaptable to other color centers and device fabrication.

Abstract

Group-IV color centers in diamond have garnered great interest for their potential as optically active solid-state spin qubits. Future utilization of such emitters requires the development of precise site-controlled emitter generation techniques that are compatible with high-quality nanophotonic devices. This task is more challenging for color centers with large group-IV impurity atoms, which are otherwise promising because of their predicted long spin coherence times without a dilution refrigerator. For example, when applied to the negatively charged tin-vacancy (SnV$^-$) center, conventional site-controlled color center generation methods either damage the diamond surface or yield bulk spectra with unexplained features. Here we demonstrate a novel method to generate site-controlled SnV$^-$ centers with clean bulk spectra. We shallowly implant Sn ions through a thin implantation mask and subsequently grow a layer of diamond via chemical vapor deposition. This method can be extended to other color centers and integrated with quantum nanophotonic device fabrication.