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arXiv:quant-ph/0512032 · Optics Express

Narrow-band single-photon emission in the near infrared for quantum key distribution

E Wu, V. Jacques, Heping Zeng, Philippe Grangier, François Treussart, Jean-François Roch

Published Jan 1, 2006• 83 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a detailed study of photophysical properties of single color centers in natural diamond samples emitting in the near infrared under optical excitation. Photoluminescence of these single emitters has several striking features, including narrow-band (FWHM 2 nm) fully polarized emission around 780 nm, a short excited-state lifetime of about 2 ns, and perfect photostability at room temperature under our excitation conditions. Development of a triggered single-photon source relying on this single color center is discussed for application to quantum key distribution.

DOI
10.1364/oe.14.001296

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arXiv:1003.3388•Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Apr 30, 2010•7 citations
We present a detailed study of photophysical properties of single color centers in natural diamond samples emitting in the near infrared under optical excitation. Photoluminescence of these single emitters has several striking features, including narrow-band (FWHM 2 nm) fully polarized emission around 780 nm, a short excited-state lifetime of about 2 ns, and perfect photostability at room temperature under our excitation conditions. Development of a triggered single-photon source relying on this single color center is discussed for application to quantum key distribution.
We report on the observation of optically active colour centres based on Nickel-Nitrogen impurities in natural diamond samples. These emitters can efficiently generate single photons in the near infrared. Their photoluminescence is perfectly stable at room temperature and has several striking features, such as a narrow band emission around 780 nm and a short photon emission lifetime around 2 ns. We present a detailed study of their photophysical properties measured under continuous-wave excitation.
We report the realization of a solid-state triggered single-photon source with narrow emission in the near infrared at room temperature. It is based on the photoluminescence of a single nickel–nitrogen NE8 colour centre in a chemical vapour deposited diamond nanocrystal. Stable single-photon emission has been observed in the photoluminescence under both continuous-wave and pulsed excitations. The realization of this source represents a step forward in the application of diamond-based single-photon sources to quantum key distribution (QKD) under practical operating conditions.
Individual color centers in diamond are promising for near-term quantum technologies including quantum key distribution and metrology. Here we show fabrication of an as-yet uncharacterized nickel-related complex in diamond which has photophysical properties surpassing the two main-stay centers for single-photon applications, namely, the nitrogen-vacancy and the nickel-nitrogen complex (NE8) center. This center was fabricated using focused ion-beam implantation of nickel into isolated chemical vapor-deposited diamond crystals. A possible correlation of the center to a Ni/Si complex is substantiated by a coimplantation of Ni and Si into a pure bulk diamond. Room-temperature photoluminescence studies reveal a narrow emission in the near infrared region centered at 768 nm with a lifetime as short as 2 ns.
Quantum communication and quantum metrology established a demand for an accessible solid state systems which can generate a stream of single photons on demand [1]. Although single photon emission has been demonstrated from quantum dots (QD)[1,2], single molecules [3] and nanowires [4], their practical operation is limited by the temperature or photostability. Diamond crystals, however, are the most promising platform for generation of robust, photo-stable, single photons at room temperature [5,6]. Nevertheless, out of more than 500 existing optical centers in diamond only three known centers demonstrated a clear single photon emission: the nitrogen-vacancy complex [6,7], the silicon-vacancy complex [8] and the nickel-nitrogen complex [9,10]. Recent progress in materials science and fabrication techniques of diamond color centers unveiled novel quantum emitters with photo-physical properties surpassing the current mainstream [11,12,13]. Consequently, the versatility of the diamond lattice to host various impurities which give luminescence signals lead to a dramatic discovery of ultra bright single photon emitters operating in the MHz regime [14]. These new centers, comparable with QD in terms of brightness [1], but have the tremendous advantage of their room temperature operation and photo-stability. Furthermore, it opened a new avenue to investigate essentially an unknown group of single photon emitters. A brief description of the fabrication methods and a detailed quantum optical characterization of this class of diamond emitters is the subject of this presentation. In particular we will present the photo-physical properties of a novel family of single photon emitters, most likely originated from Cr impurities within the chemical vapor deposition grown nano-diamond crystals. We concentrate on the typical emission lines in the range of 740 - 790 nm, which exhibit single photon emission with count rate in the range of 0.8-3.2 106 counts/s at the limit of infinite optical excitation power, and life time as short as 1 ns. Even more, some of the emitters exhibit a photon statistics without any photon bunching, indicating a two-level system with unitary quantum efficiency. We will also show preliminary results of a resonant excitation at 4 K. We will highlight future directions to optimize these sources and avenues to investigate the fundamental properties of these centers.
A detailed study of the photophysical properties of several chromium-related color centers produced within chemical vapor deposition diamond is presented. These emitters show narrow luminescence lines in the range of $740\ensuremath{-}770$ nm. Single-photon emission was verified with continuous and pulsed excitation with detected emission rates at saturation in the range of ($2\ensuremath{-}3$) $\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}$ 106{10}^{6}106 counts/s, while direct lifetime measurements reveal excited state lifetimes for the distinct centers ranging $1\ensuremath{-}14$ ns. In addition, a number of quantum emitters demonstrate two-level behavior with no bunching present in the second-order correlation function. The three-level systems revealed typically photoluminescence lines with width half-maximum of  4~4 4 nm while the two-level emitters have full width half-maximum of  10~10 10 nm at room temperature. In addition, the quantum efficiency of the two-level system was measured to be four times higher than that of the three-level system.
Color centers in diamond are very promising candidates among the possible realizations for practical singlephoton sources because of their long-time stable emission at room temperature. The popular nitrogen-vacancy center shows single-photon emission, but within a large, phonon-broadened spectrum (≈ 100 nm), which strongly limits its applicability for quantum communication. By contrast, Ni-related centers exhibit narrow emission lines at room temperature. We present investigations on single color centers consisting of Ni and Si created by ion implantation into single crystalline IIa diamond. We use systematic variations of ion doses between 108 cm-2 and 1014 cm-2 and energies between 30 keV and 1.8MeV. The Ni-related centers show emission in the near infrared spectral range (≈ 770 nm to 787 nm) with a small line-width (≈ 3 nm FWHM). A measurement of the intensity correlation function proves single-photon emission. Saturation measurements yield a rather high saturation count rate of 77.9kcounts/s. Polarization dependent measurements indicate the presence of two orthogonal dipoles.