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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Modification of the spontaneous emission rate of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond by coupling to plasmons

Andrei Faraon, Young Chul Jun, Paul E. Barclay, Kai‐Mei C. Fu, Charles Santori, Mark L. Brongersma, Raymond G. Beausoleil

Published Feb 10, 2011• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond are widely studied both as a testbed for solid state quantum optics and for their applications in quantum information processing and magnetometry. Here we demonstrate coupling of the nitrogen-vacancy centers to gap plasmons in metal nano-slits. We use diamond samples where nitrogen-vacancy centers are implanted tens of nanometers under the surface. Silver nano-slits are patterned on the sample such that diamond ridges tens of nanometers wide fill the slit gap. We measure enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate of the zero photon line by a factor of 3 at a temperature of 8K.

DOI
10.1117/12.874221

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Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond are widely studied both as a testbed for solid state quantum optics and for their applications in quantum information processing and magnetometry. Here we demonstrate coupling of the nitrogen-vacancy centers to gap plasmons in metal nano-slits. We use diamond samples where nitrogen-vacancy centers are implanted tens of nanometers under the surface. Silver nano-slits are patterned on the sample such that diamond ridges tens of nanometers wide fill the slit gap. We measure enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate of the zero photon line by a factor of 3 at a temperature of 8K.
We demonstrate an approach, based on plasmonic apertures and gratings, to enhance the radiative decay rate of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond while simultaneously improving their collection efficiency. Our structures are based on metallic resonators formed by surrounding sub-wavelength diamond nanoposts with a silver film, which can enhance the spontaneous emission rate of an embedded NV center. However, the collection efficiency of emitted photons remains low due to losses to surface plasmons and reflections at the diamond-air interface. In this work, we mitigate photon losses into these channels by incorporating grating structures into the plasmonic cavity system.
Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) color centers in diamond have emerged as promising quantum solid-state systems, with applications ranging from quantum information processing to magnetic sensing. One of the most useful properties of NVs is the ability to read their ground-state spin projection optically at room temperature. In this work we consider the effect of the Purcell enhancement on the ability to initialize the NV state and analyze the effect to imperfect initialization on the measurement SNR. We demonstrate that even with feasible initial conditions the combined increase in spontaneous emission (through Purcell enhancement) and in optical excitation could significantly increase the readout SNR.
We demonstrate the coupling of single color centers in diamond to plasmonic and dielectric photonic structures to realize novel nanophotonic devices. Nanometer spatial control in the creation of single color centers in diamond is achieved by implantation of nitrogen atoms through high-aspect-ratio channels in a mica mask. Enhanced broadband single-photon emission is demonstrated by coupling nitrogen-vacancy centers to plasmonic resonators, such as metallic nanoantennas. Improved photon-collection efficiency and directed emission is demonstrated by solid immersion lenses and micropillar cavities. Thereafter, the coupling of diamond nanocrystals to the guided modes of micropillar resonators is discussed along with experimental results. Finally, we present a gas-phase-doping approach to incorporate color centers based on nickel and tungsten, in situ into diamond using microwave-plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The fabrication of silicon-vacancy centers in nanodiamonds by microwave-plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is discussed in addition.
Spontaneous emission (SE) of nitrogen-vacancy centers (NV-centers), which are contained in a single nanodiamond (ND), placed near a silver nanocube, is investigated both experimentally and theoretically. The ND-cube system is assembled with an atomic force microscope, allowing us to directly compare its SE properties to that of the isolated ND. It is demonstrated that the cube coupled NV-centers exhibit strongly polarized SE. For optimal pump laser polarization, the rate of photons is enhanced by a factor of 4.1, with the excited state lifetime being reduced by a factor of 4.1. The enhancement of photon rate is a consequence of local field enhancement of the pump laser, while the SE polarization and lifetime reduction results from coupling of NV-centers to the localized surface plasmon mode of the nanocube. The experimental observations are in qualitative agreement with the model of SE from randomly oriented electric dipoles, allowing us to reveal the underlying physics of the investigated configuration.
Precise detection of surface plasmons is crucial for the research of nanophotonics and quantum optics. In this Letter, we used a single nitrogen vacancy center in diamond as a probe to detect the surface plasmon that was tuned by the thickness of a metallic film. The fluorescence intensity and lifetime of the nitrogen vacancy (NV) center were measured to obtain the information of local light-matter interaction. A nonlinear thickness dependent change of the surface plasmon was observed, with the maximum at the thickness of approximately 30 nm. With optimized thickness of silver film, the fluorescence intensity of a single NV center was enhanced 2.6 times, and the lifetime was reduced by a factor of 3, without affecting the coherence time of the NV spin state. The results proved that this system can quantitatively detect the light-matter interaction at nanoscale, and it provides an approach to enhance the fluorescence intensity of a quantum emitter.
The realization of efficient optical interfaces for solid-state atom-like systems is an important problem in quantum science with potential applications in quantum communications and quantum information processing. We describe and demonstrate a technique for coupling single nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers to suspended diamond photonic crystal cavities with quality factors up to 6000. Specifically, we present an enhancement of the NV center's zero-phonon line fluorescence by a factor of ~ 7 in low-temperature measurements.