Single-Color Centers Implanted in Diamond Nanostructures

Abstract

The development of material-processing techniques that can be used to generate optical diamond nanostructures containing a single-color center is an important problem in quantum science and technology. In this work, we present the combination of ion implantation and top-down diamond nanofabrication in two scenarios: diamond nanopillars and diamond nanowires. The first device consists of a 'shallow' implant (similar to 20 nm) to generate nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers near the top surface of the diamond crystal prior to device fabrication. Individual NV centers are then mechanically isolated by etching a regular array of nanopillars in the diamond surface. Photon anti-bunching measurements indicate that a high yield (> 10%) of the devices contain a single NV center. The second device demonstrates 'deep' (similar to (1 \mu m)) implantation of individual NV centers into diamond nanowires as a post-processing step. The high single-photon flux of the nanowire geometry, combined with the low background fluorescence of the ultrapure diamond, allowed us to observe sustained photon anti-bunching even at high pump powers.