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Nano Letters

Fiber-Integrated Diamond-Based Single Photon Source

Tim Schröder, Andreas Wolfgang Schell, Günter Kewes, Thomas Aichele, Oliver J. Benson

Published Dec 7, 2010• 148 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An alignment free, micrometer-scale single photon source consisting of a single quantum emitter on an optical fiber operating at room temperature is demonstrated. It easily integrates into fiber optic networks for quantum cryptography or quantum metrology applications.(1) Near-field coupling of a single nitrogen-vacancy center is achieved in a bottom-up approach by placing a preselected nanodiamond directly on the fiber facet. Its high photon collection efficiency is equivalent to a far-field collection via an objective with a numerical aperture of 0.82. Furthermore, simultaneous excitation and re-collection through the fiber is possible by introducing a fiber-connected single emitter sensor.

DOI
10.1021/nl103434r

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An alignment free, micrometer-scale single photon source consisting of a single quantum emitter on an optical fiber operating at room temperature is demonstrated. It easily integrates into fiber optic networks for quantum cryptography or quantum metrology applications.(1) Near-field coupling of a single nitrogen-vacancy center is achieved in a bottom-up approach by placing a preselected nanodiamond directly on the fiber facet. Its high photon collection efficiency is equivalent to a far-field collection via an objective with a numerical aperture of 0.82. Furthermore, simultaneous excitation and re-collection through the fiber is possible by introducing a fiber-connected single emitter sensor.
Miniaturization of quantum optical devices down to μm-dimensions and integration into fibre optical networks is a major prerequisite for future implementations of quantum information communication and processing applications. Also scalability, long-term stability and room-temperature operation are important properties of such devices. Lately there have been major improvements in down-sizing logical structures and functionalizing optical fibers. Here we present an alignment free, μm-scale single photon source consisting of a single quantum emitter on an optical fiber operating at room temperature. It easily integrates into fiber optic networks for quantum cryptography or quantum metrology applications. Near-field coupling of a single nitrogen-vacancy center is achieved in a bottom-up approach by placing a pre-selected nanodiamond directly on the fiber facet. Its high photon collection efficiency is equivalent to a far-field collection via an objective with a numerical aperture of 0.82. Furthermore, simultaneous excitation and recollection through the fiber is possible introducing a fiber-connected single emitter sensor that allows near-field probing with quantum mechanical properties.
Further miniaturization of funcionalized quantum optical systems down to nm-dimensions and their integration into fibre optical networks is a major challange for future implementations of quantum information, quantum communication and quantum processing applications. Furthermore, scalability, long-term stability and room- as well as liquid helium temperature operation are benchmarking properties of such systems. In this paper, we present the realizations of fiber-coupled diamond-based single photon systems. First, an alignment free, μm-scale single photon source consisting of a single nitrogen vacancy center facet coupled to an optical fiber operating at room temperature is presented. Near-field coupling of the single nitrogen vacancy center is realized by placing a pre-selected nanodiamond directly on the fiber facet in a bottom-up approach. Its photon collection efficiency is comparable to a far-field collection via an air objective with a numerical aperture of 0.82. As the system can be simultaneously excited and its photons be recollected through the fiber, it can be used as a fiber-connected single quantum sensor that allows optical near-field probing on the quantum level. Secondly single nanodiamonds that contain nitrogen vacancy defect centers, are near-field coupled to a tapered fiber of 300 nanometer in diameter. This system provides a record-high number of 97 kcps single photons from a single defect center into a single mode optical fiber. The entire system can be cooled to liquid Helium temperatures and reheated without breaking. Furthermore, the system can be evanescently coupled to various nanophotonic structures, e.g. microresonators. The system can also be applied for integrated quantum transmission experiments and the realization of two-photon interference. It can be used as a quantum-randomnumber generator as well as a probe for nano-magnetometry.
We report the realization of a device based on a single Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center in diamond coupled to a fiber-cavity for use as single photon source (SPS). The device consists of two concave mirrors each directly fabricated on the facets of two optical fibers and a preselected nanodiamond containing a single NV center deposited onto one of these mirrors. Both, cavity in- and out-put are directly fiber-coupled, and the emission wavelength is easily tunable by variation of the separation of the two mirrors with a piezo-electric crystal. By coupling to the cavity, we achieve an increase of the spectral photon rate density by two orders of magnitude compared to free-space emission of the NV center. With this work, we establish a simple all-fiber based SPS with promising prospects for the integration into photonic quantum networks.
A central goal in quantum information science is to efficiently interface photons with single optical modes for quantum networking and distributed quantum computing. Here, we introduce and experimentally demonstrate a compact and efficient method for the low-loss coupling of a solid-state qubit, the nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond, with a single-mode optical fiber. In this approach, single-mode tapered diamond waveguides containing exactly one high quality NV memory are selected and integrated on tapered silica fibers. Numerical optimization of an adiabatic coupler indicates that near-unity-efficiency photon transfer is possible between the two modes. Experimentally, we find an overall collection efficiency between 16% and 37% and estimate a single photon count rate at saturation above 700 kHz. This integrated system enables robust, alignment-free, and efficient interfacing of single-mode optical fibers with single photon emitters and quantum memories in solids.
NV center in diamond is attracting a lot of attention in quantum information processing community [1]. Been spin system in clean and well-controlled environment of diamond it shows outstanding performance as quantum memory even at room temperature, spin control with single shot optical readout and possibility to build up quantum registers even on single NV center. Moreover, NV centers could be used as high-resolution sensitive elements of detectors of magnetic or electric field, temperature, tension, force or rotation. For all of these applications collection of the light emitted by NV center is crucial point. There were number of approaches suggested to address this issue, proposing use of surface plasmoms [2], manufacturing structures in diamond [3] etc. One of the key feature of any practically important interface is compatibility with the fiber technology. Several groups attacking this problem using various approaches. One of them is placing of nanodiamonds in the holes of photonic crystal fiber [4], another is utilization of AFM to pick and place nanodiamond on the tapered fiber[5]. We have developed a novel technique of placing a nanodiamond with single NV center on the tapered fiber by controlled transfer of a nanodiamond from one “donor” tapered fiber to the “target” clean tapered fiber. We verify our ability to transfer only single color centers by means of measurement of second order correlation function. With this technique, we were able to double collection efficiency of confocal microscope. The majority of the factors limiting the collection of photons via optical fiber are technical and may be removed allowing order of magnitude improved in collection. We also discuss number of extensions of this technique to all fiber excitation and integration with nanostructures. References: [1] Marcus W. Doherty, Neil B. Manson, Paul Delaney, Fedor Jelezko, Jörg Wrachtrup, Lloyd C.L. Hollenberg , " The nitrogen-vacancy colour centre in diamond," Physics Reports, vol. 528, no. 1, p. 1–45, 2013. [2] A.V. Akimov, A. Mukherjee, C.L. Yu, D.E. Chang, A.S. Zibrov, P.R. Hemmer, H. Park and M.D. Lukin, "Generation of single optical plasmons in metallic nanowires coupled to quantum dots," Nature, vol. 450, p. 402–406, 2007. [3] Michael J. Burek , Yiwen Chu, Madelaine S.Z. Liddy, Parth Patel, Jake Rochman , Srujan Meesala, Wooyoung Hong, Qimin Quan, Mikhail D. Lukin and Marko Loncar High quality-factor optical nanocavities in bulk single-crystal diamond, Nature communications 6718 (2014) [4] Tim Schroder, Andreas W. Schell, Gunter Kewes, Thomas Aichele, and Oliver Benson Fiber-Integrated Diamond-Based Single Photon Source, Nano Lett. 2011, 11, 198-202 [5]Lars Liebermeister, et. al. “Tapered fiber coupling of single photons emitted by a deterministically positioned single nitrogen vacancy center”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 031101 (2014)
A central goal in quantum information science is to efficiently interface photons with single optical modes for quantum networking and distributed quantum computing. Here, we introduce and experimentally demonstrate a compact and efficient method for the low-loss coupling of a solid-state qubit, the nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond, with a single-mode optical fiber. In this approach, single-mode tapered diamond waveguides containing exactly one high quality NV memory are selected and integrated on tapered silica fibers. Numerical optimization of an adiabatic coupler indicates that near-unity-efficiency photon transfer is possible between the two modes. Experimentally, we find an overall collection efficiency between 16% and 37% and estimate a single photon count rate at saturation above 700 kHz. This integrated system enables robust, alignment-free, and efficient interfacing of single-mode optical fibers with single photon emitters and quantum memories in solids. A compact way to efficiently couple a solid-state qubit, the nitrogen vacancy center in diamond, with a single-mode optical fiber is shown. The ability to efficiently couple stationary quantum memories to a single spatial mode in a silica fiber is highly desired for various applications in quantum information processing. Now, Rishi Patel and co-workers, working in the group of Dirk Englund at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have proposed and experimentally demonstrated an approach involving adiabatic power transfer between a tapered silica fiber and a single-mode micro-waveguide made from high-quality diamond. This integrated diamond–silica waveguide system enables optical collection from nitrogen vacancy centers with overall efficiencies in the range 16%–37%—a roughly four-fold improvement over previous approaches that employed diamond point emitters rather than waveguiding structures. Numerical optimization analysis suggests that near-unity efficiencies are theoretically feasible.