Observation of Shear Strain in Ion-Implanted Diamond Substrate and Diamond Nanophotonic Structures

TL;DR

This study investigates how ion implantation and nanofabrication induce shear strain in diamond substrates, affecting NV-center electronic spin levels, with CW-ODMR spectroscopy revealing asymmetric spectral splitting.

Contribution

It demonstrates the use of CW-ODMR as a sensitive tool to detect shear strain caused by fabrication processes in diamond NV centers.

Findings

Shear strain features are observed in diamond substrates after ion implantation.

Asymmetric splitting in CW-ODMR spectra indicates local crystal strain.

Ion-implantation and nanofabrication processes induce measurable shear strain.

Abstract

Negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers and other color centers in diamonds have emerged as promising platforms for quantum communication, quantum information processing, and nanoscale sensing, owing to their long spin coherence times, fast spin control, and efficient photon coupling. Deterministic placement of individual color centers into nanophotonic structures is critical for scalable device integration, and ion implantation is the most viable technique. Nanofabrication processes, including diamond etching, are essential to realize these structures but can introduce crystal strain through lattice damage. In this work, we investigate the impact of ion implantation and nanofabrication-induced strain on the electronic spin levels of NV-centers. We demonstrate that the zero-field continuous-wave optically detected magnetic resonance (CW-ODMR) spectroscopy serves as a sensitive probe of local crystal strain. We report the presence of a shear strain feature in diamond substrates arising from the ion-implantation and nanofabrication processes, as evidenced by the asymmetric splitting black observed in the zero-field CW-ODMR spectrum of NV-centers.