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Quantum 2.0 Conference and Exhibition

Resonance fluorescence from a diamond nitrogen-vacancy center in a cavity

Yannik Fontana, Viktoria Yurgens, Andrea Corazza, Brendan Shields, Patrick Maletinsky, Richard John Warburton

Published Jan 1, 2024• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Efficiently coupling a narrow-linewidth nitrogen-vacancy center (NV) in diamond to an open optical microcavity, we observe for the first time NV resonance fluorescence without requiring any time-filtering, marking a breakthrough toward high-efficiency spin-photon entanglement sources.
DOI
10.1364/quantum.2024.qw4b.9

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The nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond is an attractive resource for the generation of remote entangled states owing to its optically addressable and long-lived electronic spin. However, its low native fraction of coherent photon emission, ~3%, undermines the achievable spin-photon entanglement rates. Here, we couple a nitrogen-vacancy center with a narrow extrinsically-broadened linewidth (159 MHz), hosted in a micron-thin membrane, to an open microcavity. The resulting Purcell factor of ~1.8 increases the zero-phonon line fraction to over 44%. Operation in the Purcell regime, together with an efficient collection of the zero-phonon-line photons, allows resonance fluorescence to be detected for the first time without any temporal filtering. We achieve a >10 signal-to-laser background ratio. This selective enhancement of the center's zero-phonon transitions could increase spin-spin entanglement success probabilities beyond an order of magnitude compared to state-of-the-art implementations, and enable powerful quantum optics techniques such as wave-packet shaping or all-optical spin manipulation.
The realisation of an efficient spin-photon interface using the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centre (NV-) in diamond requires the resonant coupling of the zero phonon line (ZPL) of the centre to an optical microcavity [1]. The cavity serves to encourage emission into the ZPL in preference to the phonon sidebands, and potentially also to increase the homogeneous linewidth via a reduction of the lifetime (the Purcell effect) thus assisting in the generation of indistinguishable photons. Cavity coupling thus has potential to improve by orders of magnitude the speed with which entanglement can be created between spatially remote NV- centres [2], and to enable other mechanisms for realising spin-photon interfaces via non-demolition measurements [3].
Single negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV-) defect centres in diamond are attractive systems for the implementation of solid state quantum information processing (QIP) and quantum key distribution (QKD). In both approaches, the coupling of an individual NV-centre to a resonant microcavity is of interest: it would improve the optical readout of the NV-centre electron spin state in QIP and enhance the collection efficiency of the single photon fluorescence in QKD while increasing the coherence length of the emission. We theoretically demonstrate that, at room temperature, the coupling to a single-mode Fabry-Perot microcavity can be used to obtain a fluorescence spectrum narrowing without loss of total intensity. We also experimentally demonstrate the control of the fluorescence spectrum of a single NV-centre by adjusting the thickness of the microcavity. Finally, we report a doubling of the emission spectral density with respect to the single mirror configuration.
Scalable quantum information processing using nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond will be difficult without the ability to couple the centers to optical microcavities and waveguides. Here we present our preliminary result of coupling a single NV center in a nanoparticle to a silica microdisk at cryogenic temperatures. The cavity-coupled NV photoluminescence is coupled out of the cavity through a tapered fiber. Although the current system is limited by the spectral properties of the NV center and the Q of the cavity, efficient particle-cavity and cavity-waveguide coupling should lead to the realization of a "one-dimensional atom" as needed for CQED, enable single-shot electron-spin readout, and increase the probability of success in entanglement schemes based on single-photon detection.
The Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centre in diamond possesses an optical read out of its spin state and shows great promise for applications in solid state quantum technologies. Its broad phonon assisted emission spectrum, with only 4% of emission from the zero-phonon line, is a major drawback to this. The optical microcavity will be essential in efficiently interfacing these centres with photonic networks. Here we present investigations into the coupling of NV centres in nanodiamond to tunable open-microcavities, both at room temperature and at cryogenic temperatures. These structures will be shown to achieve good photon confinement, with mode volumes down to 5λ3. Room temperature studies on ensembles of NVs will illustrate the tunable spectral and spatial overlap between the emitter and the cavity mode. It will be shown that small enhancements are possible in this regime. After the preparation and characterisation of single emitters, low temperature coupling to the narrowed zero-phonon line will be the central theme of this thesis. Single photon emission into the cavity mode is verified. We observe the enhancement of the light-matter interaction in this regime, by a 39% increase in the emission rate when cavity-coupled, with the dependence on mode volume also demonstrated. These results are important for the realisation of a spin-photon interface in scalable quantum networks.
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.