Color centers in diamond: from single-photons to nanoscale sensing

Color centres in diamond represent a very promising system for realizing bright, stable, on demand single-photon sources (SPS) but not only: they are attracting an ever-growing interest in quantum optics, quantum information... [ view full abstract ]

Color centres in diamond represent a very promising system for realizing bright, stable, on demand single-photon sources (SPS) but not only: they are attracting an ever-growing interest in quantum optics, quantum information and quantum sensing, due to their appealing photo-physical properties combined with ease of access and manipulation in a solid state system characterized by high transparency and structural stability.

The remarkable results obtained at the state of the art on the exploitation of the unique properties of the negatively-charged nitrogen-vacancy complex (NV^–), are pushing the discovery and characterization of new and appealing color centers. On the same time, techniques to exploit the optical readout of individual spins of NV centers for nanoscale, record performance sensing even at room temperature are being developed.

Here we review the most recent results obtained by a collaboration among the Italian National Institutes of Metrologic Research (INRiM), the University of Torino and the Italian National Institutes of Nuclear Physics (INFN):

• introducing He- and Sn-related emitters in diamond as novel SPS [1, 2];
• electrical control NV centers in bulk single-crystal diamond by means of integrated graphitic electrodes [3];
• quantum-sensing and high-resolution mapping of local electrical fields in diamond-based devices via ensembles of NV centers [4];
• Beyond-diffraction-limit mapping of diamond color centers exploiting non-classical photon statistics [5];
• towards NV-powered optically detected magnetometry in biological samples [6].

References

[1] G. Prestopino et al., Applied Physics Letters 111, 111105 (2017);

[2] S. Ditalia Tchernij et al.,  ACS Photonics 4 (10), 2580 (2017);

[3] J. Forneris et al., Scientific Reports 5, 15901 (2015);

[4] J. Forneris et al.,  arXiv: 1706.07935 (2017);

[5] D. Gatto Monticone et al., Physical Review Letters 113, 143602 (2014);

[6] L. Guarina et al., Scientific Reports 8, 2221 (2018).