Observation of room-temperature spontaneous superradiance from single diamond nanocrystals

Abstract

We report the observation of room-temperature superradiance from single, highly luminescent diamond nanocrystals with spatial dimensions much smaller than the wavelength of light, and each containing a large number (~10^3) of embedded nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres. After excitation of the nanodiamonds with an off-resonant, green laser pulse, we observe i) ultrafast radiative lifetimes down to ~ 1 ns, and ii) super-Poissonian photon bunching in the autocorrelation function of the light emitted from the fastest nanodiamonds. We explain our findings with a detailed theoretical model based on collective Dicke states and well-known properties of NV centres. Using a minimal set of fit parameters, the model captures both the wide range of different lifetimes and the nontrivial photon correlations found in the experiments. The results pave the way towards a systematic study of superradiance in a well controlled, solid-state quantum system at room temperature. Ultimately, quantum engineering of superradiance in diamond has the potential for advancing applications in quantum sensing, energy harvesting, and efficient photon detection.

Main text + Supplementary: 12 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Fiber Fabry-Perot cavity with high finesse
• Phonon-Induced Population Dynamics and Intersystem Crossing in Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers
• Dicke Superradiance in Solids
• Deterministic formation of highly coherent nitrogen-vacancy centers using a focused electron irradiation technique
• Prediction and measurement of the size-dependent stability of fluorescence in diamond over the entire nanoscale
• Quantum Metrology with Dicke Squeezed States
• Observation of cooperatively enhanced atomic dipole forces from NV centers in optically trapped nanodiamonds
• Dicke phase transition without total spin conservation

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