Local formation of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond by swift heavy ions

Abstract

We exposed nitrogen-implanted diamonds to beams of swift uranium and gold ions (~1 GeV) and find that these irradiations lead directly to the formation of nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers, without thermal annealing. We compare the photoluminescence intensities of swift heavy ion activated NV- centers to those formed by irradiation with low-energy electrons and by thermal annealing. NV- yields from irradiations with swift heavy ions are 0.1 of yields from low energy electrons and 0.02 of yields from thermal annealing. We discuss possible mechanisms of NV-center formation by swift heavy ions such as electronic excitations and thermal spikes. While forming NV centers with low efficiency, swift heavy ions enable the formation of three dimensional NV- assemblies over relatively large distances of tens of micrometers. Further, our results show that NV-center formation is a local probe of (partial) lattice damage relaxation induced by electronic excitations from swift heavy ions in diamond.

to be published in Journal of Applied Physics

References in corpus (4)

• Quantum Computing
• Chip-scale nanofabrication of single spins and spin arrays in diamond
• Creating diamond color centers for quantum optical applications
• Single-atom doping for quantum device development in diamond and silicon

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• Diamond-defect engineering of NV- centers using ion beam irradiation
• Recent Experiments At Ndcx-II: Irradiation Of Materials Using Short, Intense Ion Beams