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All-Optical Method for Characterizing Individual Fluorescent Nanodiamonds

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2016-02-04
JournalACS Photonics
AuthorsBenjamin T. Miles, Alexander B. Greenwood, Brian Patton, H. Gersen
InstitutionsUniversity of Oxford, University of Bristol
Citations9

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV-) defects embedded in nanodiamond have attracted attention for their useful photonic and spin properties and their exceptional photostability. Efficiently detecting nanodiamonds that possess color centers and discriminating from any background fluorescent contamination are essential for nanodiamond-based technologies and thus necessitates the detection of both the nanoparticle and the fluorescent signature. However, optically detecting small nanodiamonds (<40 nm) proves difficult due to the low absorption and scattering cross section of nanodiamonds. Here we demonstrate an all-optical method capable of simultaneously colocalizing scattered signal from individual nanodiamonds (∼10 nm) with the fluorescent signature from NV- centers.