Giant nonlinear optical effects induced by nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond crystals

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond significantly enhance nonlinear optical effects like the optical Kerr effect and two-photon absorption, especially in heavily implanted diamond, due to symmetry-breaking effects.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how NV centers can be used to boost nonlinear optical responses in diamond materials.

Findings

NV centers enhance nonlinear optical effects in diamond.

Heavily implanted diamond shows strong optical Kerr effect enhancement.

Cascading effects may contribute to the observed nonlinear enhancements.

Abstract

We investigate the effect of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in single crystal diamond on nonlinear optical effects using 40 fs femtosecond laser pulses. The near infrared femtosecond pulses allow us to study purely nonlinear optical effects, such as optical Kerr effect (OKE) and two-photon absorption (TPA), relating to unique optical transitions by electronic structures with NV centers. It is found that both the nonlinear optical effects are enhanced by the introduction of NV centers in the N$^{+}$ dose levels of 2.0$\times$10$^{11}$ and 1.0$\times$10$^{12}$ N$^{+}$/cm$^{2}$. In particular, our data demonstrate that the OKE signal is strongly enhanced for the heavily implanted type-IIa diamond. We suggest that the strong enhancement of the OKE is possibly originated from cascading OKE, where the high-density NV centers effectively break the inversion symmetry near the surface region of diamond.