Purcell-Enhanced Emissions from Diamond Color Centers in Slow Light Photonic Crystal Waveguides
Sophie Weiyi Ding, Chang Jin, Kazuhiro Kuruma, Xinghan Guo, Michael Haas, Boris A. Korzh, Andrew D. Beyer, Matthew D. Shaw, Neil E. Sinclair, D. D. Awschalom, F. Joseph Heremans, Nazar Delegan, Alexander A. High, Marko Lončar
Diamond color centers are promising candidates for optically addressable quantum memories, which motivates the development of efficient photonic interfaces, often using nanophotonic cavities with narrow spectral line widths and small mode volumes. However, they require perfect spectral and spatial overlap between the cavity mode and quantum emitter, which is challenging. This is especially true for solid-state quantum emitters that are often randomly positioned and suffer from inhomogeneous broadening. Another approach to enhance light-matter interaction across large optical bandwidths and areas is using slow light waveguides. Here, we demonstrate diamond slow light photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides optically coupled to embedded silicon-vacancy (SiV) color centers. We use the recently developed thin-film diamond approach to fabricate fully suspended two-dimensional PhC waveguides. We demonstrate waveguide modes with high group indices up to 70 and observe Purcell-enhanced emissions of the SiVs. Our approach represents a practical diamond platform for robust spin-photon interfaces with color centers.
Diamond color centers are promising candidates for optically addressable quantum memories, which motivates the development of efficient photonic interfaces, often using nanophotonic cavities with narrow spectral line widths and small mode volumes. However, they require perfect spectral and spatial overlap between the cavity mode and quantum emitter, which is challenging. This is especially true for solid-state quantum emitters that are often randomly positioned and suffer from inhomogeneous broadening. Another approach to enhance light-matter interaction across large optical bandwidths and areas is using slow light waveguides. Here, we demonstrate diamond slow light photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides optically coupled to embedded silicon-vacancy (SiV) color centers. We use the recently developed thin-film diamond approach to fabricate fully suspended two-dimensional PhC waveguides. We demonstrate waveguide modes with high group indices up to 70 and observe Purcell-enhanced emissions of the SiVs. Our approach represents a practical diamond platform for robust spin-photon interfaces with color centers.
Building quantum networks requires efficient coupling of solid-state quantum emitters to photonic devices. Tinvacancy center (SnV) has attracted much interest for having long spin coherence times at temperatures above 1 K. Employing SnV as an optically addressable qubit requires integration with photonic structures to both route the emitted photons and enhance the light-matter interaction. We present incorporation of high-quality SnV centers with narrow linewidths in suspended diamond waveguides. Furthermore, we fabricate photonic crystal cavities in diamond with embedded SnV centers. We observe strong intensity enhancement of the photon emission when the cavity is resonant with the color center. Time-resolved photoluminescence measurements confirm that this effect is due to radiative Purcell enhancement of the spontaneous emission. Finally, we demonstrate Stark tuning of transition frequency of SnV centers, essential for multiemitter applications. These results are a significant step toward color-center-based quantum information processing applications without the need for dilution refrigerators.
Chip integration of quantum emitters is a crucial milestone for scalable quantum photonic information processing. Among optically active defect centers for quantum photonics, diamond color centers are promising because of their long spin coherence times and high photon emission rates. However, for a coherent-photon emission, they typically require a cryogenic environment to protect optical coherence from thermal phonons, which makes chip integration challenging. In this paper, we develop a chip-integrated diamond photonic crystal cavity embedding an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. We confirm cryogenic operation by observing Purcell enhancement of NV-center emission via an edge-coupled optical fiber. This result demonstrates successful integration of diamond color centers, a photonic crystal cavity, and an optical waveguide-fiber package, representing a key step toward scalable diamond-based quantum communication platforms.
Efficient interfaces between optical photons and quantum bits are fundamental building blocks for quantum networks and large-scale quantum computers. We demonstrate an integrated platform for scalable quantum optics based on color centers coupled to diamond nanodevices. First, we incorporate nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond into hybrid nanophotonic crystal cavities. Despite our progress towards coupling the NV to cavity photons, we find that the NV-cavity interface is limited by the imperfections of the color center's properties and its local environment. We approach this challenge first by characterizing and modifying the diamond surface to reduce the environmental noise affecting the NV optical transition. Subsequently, we develop a new approach that makes use of a quantum emitter with intrinsic protection from this noise: the silicon-vacancy (SiV) center in diamond. We demonstrate that SiV centers introduced through ion implantation feature highly coherent optical transitions, even inside nanostructures. By placing SiV centers inside all-diamond photonic crystal cavities, we achieve strong SiV-photon coupling with a cooperativity of greater than 20. Using this platform, we realize a quantum-optical switch controlled by the spin degree of freedom of a single SiV. By measuring intensity correlations of indistinguishable Raman photons emitted into a single waveguide, we observe a quantum interference effect resulting from the superradiant emission of two probabilistically entangled SiV centers. Finally, we demonstrate controllable photon-mediated interactions between the spin degrees of freedom of two cavity-coupled SiV centers. When the optical transitions of the two SiV centers are tuned into resonance, the coupling of each SiV to the common cavity mode results in a coherent interaction between the two SiVs, leading to the observation of super- and sub-radiant two-SiV states.
Quantum networks rely on the efficient coupling of coherent quantum memories to photonic links. Tin-vacancy centers (SnV) have emerged as promising candidates for the implementation of an optically interfaced quantum memory based on their long spin coherence times at temperatures above 1K. To enhance their interaction with photons SnV centers need to be integrated with high-quality photonic structures. In this work, we report the enhancement of coherent emission of SnV centers by coupling them to a nanophotonic waveguide resonator. We observe strong intensity enhancement of the photon emission when the cavity is resonant with the color center. We demonstrate strong enhancement of the radiative recombination rate of SnV centers resulting in their predominant emission via the coherent zero-phonon line and into the cavity mode. These results are a significant step toward color-center-based quantum information processing applications without the need for dilution refrigerators.
The negatively charged tin-vacancy center in diamond (SnV−) is an excellent solid state qubit with optically-addressable transitions and a long electron spin coherence time at elevated (∼1.7 K). However, implementing scalable quantum nodes with high-fidelity optical readout of the electron spin state requires efficient photon emission and collection from the system. In this manuscript, we report a quantum photonic interface for SnV− centers based on one-dimensional photonic crystal cavities fabricated in diamond thin films. Furthermore, we provide a rigorous description of the spontaneous emission dynamics of our system, taking into account individual contributions from both the C and D transitions of the emitter. This allows for determination of Purcell factors per transition and, by extension, the C/D branching ratio SnV− zero phonon line. We observe quality factors up to $\sim$6000 across this sample, and measure up to a 12-fold lifetime reduction, which translates into a Purcell factor of FC=26.2±1.5 for a targeted C transition. By considering the cavity mode polarization alignment with the C and D transition dipole moments, we validate the C/D branching ratio to be ηBR=0.75±0.01, in line with previous theoretical and experimental findings.
With their ability to process and transfer quantum information, large-scale entanglement-based quantum networks could be at the heart of a new age of quantum information, enabling fundamentally new applications such as distributed quantum computation, quantum communication, and quantum enhanced sensing. Due to their long spin coherence, controllable local qubit registers and optically active spins, color centers in diamond are prime candidates for nodes of such a network, and have enabled some of the most advanced quantum network demonstrations to date. These demonstrations include the distribution of a 3-node GHZ state across a quantum network, entanglement swapping, entanglement distillation, and memory-enhanced quantum communication. To move beyond current proof-of-principle networks, a further increase of entanglement generation rates is crucial. This thesis presents theoretical and experimental work on enhancing the spin-photon interface of color centers in diamond to achieve this goal, making use of the Purcell effect. The discussed work follows two main directions: embedding of color centers in open, tuneable Fabry-Perot micro-cavities, and in all-diamond photonic crystal cavities. First, we describe theoretical and experimental progress towards cavity-enhanced quantum networks based on nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. Due to their first order sensitivity to electric fields, we choose to embed NV centers in microns-thin diamond membranes that can be integrated into open fiber-based micro-cavities. We develop analytical methods to optimize the design of such open cavity systems for maximum Purcell enhancement of embedded color centers. We demonstrate a method to fabricate optically coherent NV centers in microns-thin diamond membranes, and use such structures to demonstrate the resonant excitation and detection of coherent, Purcell enhanced NV emission. A theoretical model in excellent agreement with our results suggests our system can improve entanglement rates between distant NV centers by two orders of magnitude with near-term improvements to the setup. Second, we describe progress towards an efficient spin-photon interface of group-IV color centers in diamond by coupling them to photonic nanostructures, allowing for large-scale integration. Due to their first-order insensitivity to electric fields, group-IV color centers can be brought in close proximity to surfaces (~ 100 nm), allowing for sub-wavelength mode volumes and thus very high Purcell factors. We numerically optimize photonic crystal cavity designs to maximize the Purcell enhancement of embedded emitters, test the robustness of our designs to real-world fabrication imperfections, and devise a method to efficiently interface nanophotonic structures. We then proceed to fabricate all-diamond photonic crystal cavities, making use of a dry etching technique that is selective to different crystallographic directions, and characterize the resulting optical quality factors. Finally, we marry the developed fabrication methods to fabricate microns-sized diamond platelets that can be transferred from a holding frame in a controlled fashion. This capability could be crucial for the realization of hybrid photonic circuits that we expect to be at the heart of future large-scale quantum networks.