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arXiv:1503.04938

A Germanium-Vacancy Single Photon Source in Diamond

Takayuki Iwasaki, Fumitaka Ishibashi, Yoshiyuki Miyamoto, Yuki Doi, Satoshi Kobayashi, Takehide Miyazaki, Kosuke Tahara, Kay D. Jahnke, Lachlan J. Rogers, Boris Naydenov, Fedor Jelezko, Satoshi Yamasaki, Nagamachi, Shinji, Toshiro Inubushi, Norikazu Mizuochi, Mutsuko Hatano

Published Mar 17, 2015• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Color centers in diamond are widely recognized as a promising solid state platform for quantum cryptography and quantum information processing. For these applications, single photon sources with a high intensity and reproducible fabrication methods are required. Here, we report a novel color center in diamond, composed of a germanium (Ge) and a vacancy (V) and named the GeV center, which has a sharp and strong photoluminescence band with a zero-phonon line at 602 nm at room temperature. We demonstrate this new color center works as a single photon source. Both ion implantation and chemical vapor deposition techniques enabled fabrication of GeV centers in diamond. A first-principles calculation revealed the atomic crystal structure and energy levels of the GeV center.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1503.04938

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Abstract The nanoscale fabrication of μm-spaced single-photon emitter arrays is crucial for the development of integrated photonic chips. We report on the fabrication and systematic characterization of germanium-vacancy (GeV) color centers arrays in diamond obtained upon ion implantation at the nanoscale. Ge2+ ion implantations at 35 keV and 70 keV energies were carried out using a focused ion beam (FIB) equipped with a liquid metal alloy ion source. The arrays of emitters are subsequently aligned to ø300 nm nanopillar waveguiding structures, fabricated using a combination of electron-beam lithography and plasma etching. The photon collection efficiency and photoluminescence (PL) signal-to-background ratio increased by a factor 8 with respect to the unstructured sample. The photophysical properties of the GeV emitters fabricated by this approach were unaltered with respect to those found in unprocessed diamond. The efficiency of the overall manufacturing process to fabricate individual GeV centers was assessed. Up to 33% of the fabricated nanopillars, depending on ion implantation parameters, were found to contain single emitters.
The development of reliable devices to generate single photons is crucial for applications in quantum cryptography, as well as for fundamental quantum optics experiments. Due to their extremely high photostability at room temperature, optically active defects in solids, the so called color centers, are among the most promising candidates. Single NV (nitrogen-vacancy) centers in diamond have been demonstrated to be able to generate single photons and have already shown advantages compared to attenuated laser pulses in a quantum cryptography experiment. The nitrogen-vacancy center (NV center) in diamond consists of a substitutional nitrogen atom and an adjacent vacancy. This complex exhibits an optical transition with a fluorescence lifetime of 11.6 ns. The room temperature spectrum of the NV center consists of the zero-phonon line at 637 nm and broad phononic sidebands with a FWHM of more than 100 nm. Due to the existence of a shelving level the efficiency of the NV center as a single photon source is limited. Additionally, the high diffraction index of bulk diamond restricts the efficiency to collect the fluorescence light.
Color centers in diamond are promising solid-state qubits for scalable quantum photonics applications. Amongst many defects, those with inversion symmetry are of an interest due to their promising optical properties. In this work, we demonstrate a maskless implantation of an array of bright, single germanium vacancy (GeV) centers in diamond. Employing the direct focused ion beam technique, single GeV emitters are engineered with the spatial accuracy of tens of nanometers. The single GeV creation ratio reaches as high as 53% with the dose of 200 Ge + ions per spot. The presented fabrication method is promising for future nanofabrication of integrated photonic structures with GeV emitters as a leading platform for spin-spin interactions.