Efficient Conversion of Nitrogen to Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Diamond Particles with High-Temperature Electron Irradiation

Abstract

Fluorescent nanodiamonds containing negatively-charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV${}^{-}$) centers are promising for a wide range of applications, such as for sensing, as fluorescence biomarkers, or to hyperpolarize nuclear spins. NV${}^{-}$ centers are formed from substitutional nitrogen (P1 centers) defects and vacancies in the diamond lattice. Maximizing the concentration of NVs is most beneficial, which justifies the search for methods with a high yield of conversion from P1 to NV${}^{-}$. We report here the characterization of surface cleaned fluorescent micro- and nanodiamonds, obtained by irradiation of commercial diamond powder with high-energy (10 MeV) electrons and simultaneous annealing at 800°C. Using this technique and increasing the irradiation dose, we demonstrate the creation of NV${}^{-}$ with up to 25 % conversion yield. Finally, we monitor the creation of irradiation-induced spin-1 defects in microdiamond particles, which we associate with W16 and W33 centers, and investigate the effects of irradiation dose and particle size on the coherence time of NV${}^{-}$.

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Large Room Temperature Bulk DNP of ${}^{13}$C via P1 Centers in Diamond
• Ultrahigh nitrogen-vacancy center concentration in diamond
• ${}^{13}$C Hyperpolarization with Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Micro- and Nanodiamonds for Sensitive Magnetic Resonance Applications
• Angle Locking of a Levitating Diamond using Spin-Diamagnetism
• Optical Detection of Paramagnetic Defects in a CVD-grown Diamond
• Efficient fabrication of high-density ensembles of color centers via ion implantation on a hot diamond substrate
• Weak electron irradiation suppresses the anomalous magnetization of N-doped diamond crystals
• The study of the efficiency of nitrogen to NV-center conversion in high nitrogen content samples
• Creation of NV centers in diamond under 155 MeV electron irradiation