Transform-Limited Photon Emission From a Lead-Vacancy Center in Diamond Above 10 K

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that lead-vacancy centers in diamond can emit nearly transform-limited photons up to 16 K, showing high temperature robustness and potential for quantum communication applications.

Contribution

It reports the coherent optical properties of PbV centers in diamond, highlighting their near transform-limited emission at elevated temperatures, which is a significant advancement over other color centers.

Findings

Photon linewidth of 39 MHz at 6 K close to transform limit

Nearly transform-limited emission observed up to 16 K

Phonon-induced relaxation causes linewidth differences

Abstract

Transform-limited photon emission from quantum emitters is essential for high-fidelity entanglement generation. In this study, we report the coherent optical property of a single negatively-charged lead-vacancy (PbV) center in diamond. Photoluminescence excitation measurements reveal stable fluorescence with a linewidth of 39 MHz at 6 K, close to the transform-limit estimated from the lifetime measurement. We observe four orders of magnitude different linewidths of the two zero-phonon-lines, and find that that the phonon-induced relaxation in the ground state contributes to this huge difference in the linewidth. Due to the suppressed phonon absorption in the PbV center, we observe nearly transform-limited photon emission up to 16 K, demonstrating its high temperature robustness compared to other color centers in diamond.