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Optical Materials Express

Scalable fabrication of coupled NV center - photonic crystal cavity systems by self-aligned N ion implantation

Tim Schröder, Michael E. Walsh, Jiabao Zheng, Sara Mouradian, Luozhou Li, Girish Malladi, H. Bakhru, Ming Chang Lu, Aaron Stein, Mikkel Heuck, Dirk Englund

Published Apr 6, 2017• 35 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Towards building large-scale integrated photonic systems for quantum information processing, spatial and spectral alignment of single quantum systems to photonic nanocavities is required. Here, we demonstrate spatially targeted implantation of nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers into the mode maximum of 2-d diamond photonic crystal cavities with quality factors up to 8000, achieving an average of 1:1 0:2 NVs per cavity. Nearly all NV-cavity systems have significant emission intensity enhancement, reaching a cavity-fed spectrally selective intensity enhancement, Fint, of up to 93. Although spatial NV-cavity overlap is nearly guaranteed within about 40 nm, spectral tuning of the NV’s zero-phonon-line (ZPL) is still necessary after fabrication. To demonstrate spectral control, we temperature tune a cavity into an NV ZPL, yielding FZPL int ~ 5 at cryogenic temperatures.

DOI
10.1364/ome.7.001514

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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.

Nano Letters•Oct 24, 2013•213 citations
Towards building large-scale integrated photonic systems for quantum information processing, spatial and spectral alignment of single quantum systems to photonic nanocavities is required. Here, we demonstrate spatially targeted implantation of nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers into the mode maximum of 2-d diamond photonic crystal cavities with quality factors up to 8000, achieving an average of 1:1 0:2 NVs per cavity. Nearly all NV-cavity systems have significant emission intensity enhancement, reaching a cavity-fed spectrally selective intensity enhancement, Fint, of up to 93. Although spatial NV-cavity overlap is nearly guaranteed within about 40 nm, spectral tuning of the NV’s zero-phonon-line (ZPL) is still necessary after fabrication. To demonstrate spectral control, we temperature tune a cavity into an NV ZPL, yielding FZPL int ~ 5 at cryogenic temperatures.
We demonstrate a self-aligned lithographic technique for precision generation of nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers within photonic nanostructures on bulk diamond substrates. The process relies on a lithographic mask with nanoscale implantation apertures for NV creation, together with larger features for producing waveguides and photonic nanocavities. This mask allows targeted nitrogen ion implantation, and precision dry etching of nanostructures on bulk diamond. We demonstrate high-yield generation of single NVs at pre-determined nanoscale target regions on suspended diamond waveguides. We report implantation into the mode maximum of diamond photonic crystal nanocavities with a single-NV per cavity yield of ∼26% and Purcell induced intensity enhancement of the zero-phonon line. The generation of NV centers aligned with diamond photonic structures marks an important tool for scalable production of optically coupled spin memories.
Summary form only given. Deterministic coupling of a single emitter to a photonic crystal cavity is an important step towards the realization of integrated solid-state devices for quantum photonics. As single emitters, color centers in diamond, e.g. the Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center or the Silicon-Vacancy (SiV) center have attracted significant interest due to their extraordinary properties like long spin-coherence times or narrowband and bright single photon emission, respectively. For the realization of recent proposals like cavity-enhanced spin measurements or cavity-enhanced single photon sources, it is necessary to couple single color centers to a cavity with small mode volume and high quality factor. Photonic crystal cavities directly fabricated within a monocrystalline diamond membrane are well suited for this task, as they offer tiny mode volumes for efficient emitter-cavity coupling as well as scalable architectures for integrated photonic devices.In order to achieve controlled coupling of a color center to a photonic crystal cavity, several challenges have to be tackled, e.g. exact emitter positioning and alignment of its dipole moment with the cavity electric field as well as the ability for cavity tuning. For deterministic emitter-cavity positioning, two different routes can be pursued: In the first approach, a single emitter is localized within the diamond, its dipole orientation is determined and the cavity is subsequently structured around it. In the second approach, the cavity is fabricated first and a single color center is created within the cavity, e.g. via ion implantion or creation of vacancies. Here we present strategies to realize both methods for deterministic emitter-cavity coupling. For the first approach, we use a monocrystalline diamond film containing single SiV centers. Figure 1a) shows a fluorescence scan of a single SiV center with position markers next to it. The position markers are subsequently used to structure a photonic crystal cavity around the color center using focused ion beam milling [1]. Figures 1b) and c) show SEMimages before and after the cavity fabrication. The photonic crystal lattice constant a ≈ 283nm is chosen such that the cavity modes are red shifted with respect to the SiV emission lines. Using an oxidation tuning method, the cavity modes are tuned into resonance with the zero-phonon line at 740nm of a single SiV center (see Fig. 1d)). On resonance, we measure an intensity enhancement by a factor of 3.8 compared to the off-resonant case.
The negatively charged nitrogen vacancy center (NV) in diamond has generated significant interest as a platform for quantum information processing and sensing in the solid state. For most applications, high quality optical cavities are required to enhance the NV zero-phonon line (ZPL) emission. An outstanding challenge in maximizing the degree of NV-cavity coupling is the deterministic placement of NVs within the cavity. Here, we report photonic crystal nanobeam cavities coupled to NVs incorporated by a delta-doping technique that allows nanometer-scale vertical positioning of the emitters. We demonstrate cavities with Q up to ∼24 000 and mode volume V ∼ 0.47(λ/n)3 as well as resonant enhancement of the ZPL of an NV ensemble with Purcell factor of ∼20. Our fabrication technique provides a first step towards deterministic NV-cavity coupling using spatial control of the emitters.
Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers feature outstanding properties such as a spin coherence time of up to 1 s as well as a level structure offering the possibility to initialize, coherently manipulate, and optically read-out the spin degree of freedom of the ground state. However, only about 3% of their photon emission is channeled into the zero phonon line (ZPL), limiting both the rate of indistinguishable single photons and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of coherent spin-photon interfaces. We here report on the enhancement of the SNR of the optical spin read-out achieved by tuning the mode of a two-dimensional photonic crystal (PhC) cavity into resonance with the NV-ZPL. PhC cavities are fabricated by focused ion beam milling in thin reactive ion etched ultrapure single crystal diamond membranes featuring modes with Q-factors of up to 8250 at mode volumes below one cubic wavelength. NV centers are produced in the cavities in a controlled fashion by a high resolution atomic force microscope implantation technique. On cavity resonance, we observe a lifetime shortening from 9.0 ns to 8.0 ns as well as an enhancement of the ZPL emission by almost one order of magnitude. Although on resonance the collection efficiency of ZPL photons and the spin-dependent fluorescence contrast are reduced, the SNR of the optical spin read-out is almost tripled for the cavity-coupled NV centers.
We present the controlled creation of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers via ion implantation at the center of a photonic crystal cavity which is fabricated in an ultrapure, single crystal diamond membrane. High-resolution placement of NV centers is achieved using collimation of a 5 keV-nitrogen ion beam through a pierced tip of an atomic force microscope. We demonstrate coupling of the implanted NV centers' broad band fluorescence to a cavity mode and observe Purcell enhancement of the spontaneous emission. The results are in good agreement with a master equation model for the cavity coupling.
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.