Fabrication of single nickel-nitrogen defects in diamond by chemical vapor deposition

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the fabrication of single nickel-nitrogen defect centers in diamond via chemical vapor deposition, which emit single photons at room temperature, advancing quantum cryptography and optical microscopy applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to create NE8 defect centers in diamond using CVD, enabling room-temperature single-photon sources for quantum technologies.

Findings

Single NE8 defects emit at 797 nm with 1.5 nm linewidth.

Photon antibunching confirms single-photon emission.

High density of optically active sites (~10^6/cm^2) achieved.

Abstract

Fabrication of single nickel-nitrogen (NE8) defect centers in diamond by chemical vapor deposition is demonstrated. Under continuous-wave 745 nm laser excitation single defects were induced to emit single photon pulses at 797 nm with a linewidth of 1.5 nm at room temperature. Photon antibunching of single centers was demonstrated using a Hanbury-Brown and Twiss interferometer. Confocal images revealed approximately 10^6 optically active sites/cm^2 in the synthesized films. The fabrication of an NE8 based single photon source in synthetic diamond is important for fiber based quantum cryptography. It can also be used as an ideal point-like source for near-field optical microscopy.