Perfect alignment and preferential orientation of nitrogen-vacancy centers during chemical vapor deposition diamond growth on (111) surfaces

Synthetic diamond production is a key to the development of quantum metrology and quantum information applications of diamond. The major quantum sensor and qubit candidate in diamond is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center. This lattice defect comes in four different crystallographic orientations leading to an intrinsic inhomogeneity among NV centers, which is undesirable in some applications. Here, we report a microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition diamond growth technique on (111)-oriented substrates, which yields perfect alignment (94% ± 2%) of as-grown NV centers along a single crystallographic direction. In addition, clear evidence is found that the majority (74% ± 4%) of the aligned NV centers were formed by the nitrogen being first included in the (111) growth surface and then followed by the formation of a neighboring vacancy on top. The achieved homogeneity of the grown NV centers will tremendously benefit quantum information and metrology applications.

[1]  F. Dolde,et al.  A Viewpoint on: Nanoscale Detection of a Single Fundamental Charge in Ambient Conditions Using the NV Center in Diamond , 2014 .

[2]  Yuri N. Palyanov,et al.  High quality thick CVD diamond films homoepitaxially grown on (111)-oriented substrates , 2014 .

[3]  M. Rayson,et al.  Atomistic modeling of the polarization of nitrogen centers in diamond due to growth surface orientation , 2013 .

[4]  S. Shikata,et al.  Negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centers in a 5 nm thin 12C diamond film. , 2013, Nano letters.

[5]  S. Bhave,et al.  Mechanical spin control of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. , 2013, Physical review letters.

[6]  S. Bennett,et al.  Phonon cooling and lasing with nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond , 2013, 1306.5915.

[7]  T. Taniguchi,et al.  Effective Use of Source Gas for Diamond Growth with Isotopic Enrichment , 2013 .

[8]  M. D. Lukin,et al.  Optical magnetic imaging of living cells , 2013, Nature.

[9]  P. Maurer,et al.  Nanometre-scale thermometry in a living cell , 2013, Nature.

[10]  D. Suter,et al.  High-precision nanoscale temperature sensing using single defects in diamond. , 2013, Nano letters.

[11]  Viatcheslav V. Dobrovitski,et al.  Supporting Information for “ Fluorescence thermometry enhanced by the quantum coherence of single spins in diamond ” , 2013 .

[12]  C. Trautmann,et al.  Room-temperature entanglement between single defect spins in diamond , 2012, Nature Physics.

[13]  M. Schweikert,et al.  Magnetic spin imaging under ambient conditions with sub-cellular resolution , 2012, Nature Communications.

[14]  F. Jelezko,et al.  Photo-induced ionization dynamics of the nitrogen vacancy defect in diamond investigated by single-shot charge state detection , 2012, 1209.0268.

[15]  Kenji Watanabe,et al.  Chemical Vapor Deposition of 12C Isotopically Enriched Polycrystalline Diamond , 2012 .

[16]  M. Markham,et al.  Enhanced metrology using preferential orientation of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond , 2012, 1207.3363.

[17]  Seattle,et al.  Production of oriented nitrogen-vacancy color centers in synthetic diamond , 2011, 1112.5757.

[18]  W. Marsden.  I and J , 2012 .

[19]  D. Twitchen,et al.  Optical properties of the neutral silicon split-vacancy center in diamond , 2011 .

[20]  D. Englund,et al.  Time-keeping with electron spin states in diamond , 2011, 1109.3241.

[21]  D. Kern,et al.  Cold-atom scanning probe microscopy. , 2011, Nature nanotechnology.

[22]  L. Hollenberg,et al.  Electric-field sensing using single diamond spins , 2011 .

[23]  J. Schmiedmayer,et al.  Cavity QED with magnetically coupled collective spin states. , 2011, Physical review letters.

[24]  Todd A. Brun,et al.  Quantum Computing , 2011, Computer Science, The Hardware, Software and Heart of It.

[25]  Matthias Steiner,et al.  Single-Shot Readout of a Single Nuclear Spin , 2010, Science.

[26]  J Wrachtrup,et al.  Strong coupling of a spin ensemble to a superconducting resonator. , 2010, Physical review letters.

[27]  F. Dolde,et al.  High sensitivity magnetic imaging using an array of spins in diamond. , 2010, The Review of scientific instruments.

[28]  M. Feng,et al.  Room-temperature implementation of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm with a single electronic spin in diamond. , 2010, Physical review letters.

[29]  Raymond G. Beausoleil,et al.  Diamonds with a high density of nitrogen-vacancy centers for magnetometry applications , 2009 .

[30]  M. Markham,et al.  Ultralong spin coherence time in isotopically engineered diamond. , 2009, Nature materials.

[31]  P. Windpassinger,et al.  Mesoscopic atomic entanglement for precision measurements beyond the standard quantum limit , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[32]  Alfred Leitenstorfer,et al.  Nanoscale imaging magnetometry with diamond spins under ambient conditions , 2008, Nature.

[33]  Jacob M. Taylor,et al.  Nanoscale magnetic sensing with an individual electronic spin in diamond , 2008, Nature.

[34]  J. Wrachtrup,et al.  Multipartite Entanglement Among Single Spins in Diamond , 2008, Science.

[35]  L. Jiang,et al.  Quantum Register Based on Individual Electronic and Nuclear Spin Qubits in Diamond , 2007, Science.

[36]  K. Iakoubovskii,et al.  Alignment of Ni- and Co-related centres during the growth of high-pressure high-temperature diamond , 2004 .

[37]  F. Jelezko,et al.  Observation of coherent oscillations in a single electron spin. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[38]  F. Jelezko,et al.  Observation of coherent oscillation of a single nuclear spin and realization of a two-qubit conditional quantum gate. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[39]  Yoichiro Sato,et al.  Boron concentration dependence of Raman spectra on {100} and {111} facets of B-doped CVD diamond , 1998 .

[40]  J. Wrachtrup,et al.  Scanning confocal optical microscopy and magnetic resonance on single defect centers , 1997 .

[41]  J. Herskowitz,et al.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA , 1996, Current Biology.

[42]  C. N. Dodge,et al.  Growth-sector dependence of optical features in large synthetic diamonds , 1990 .

[43]  A. T. Collins.  The polarised adsorption and cathodoluminescence associated with the 1.40 eV centre in synthetic diamond , 1989 .

[44]  Physical Review Letters 63 , 1989 .