Enhanced concentrations of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond through TEM irradiation
At a Glance
Section titled āAt a Glanceā| Metadata | Details |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 2017-09-18 |
| Journal | Applied Physics Letters |
| Authors | Demitry Farfurnik, Nir Alfasi, Sergei Masis, Yaron Kauffmann, E. Farchi |
| Institutions | Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion ā Israel Institute of Technology |
| Citations | 45 |
Abstract
Section titled āAbstractāThe studies of many-body dynamics of interacting spin ensembles, as well as quantum sensing in solid state systems, are often limited by the need for high spin concentrations, along with efficient decoupling of the spin ensemble from its environment. In particular, for an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond, high conversion efficiencies between nitrogen (P1) defects and NV centers are essential while maintaining long coherence times of an NV ensemble. In this work, we study the effect of electron irradiation on the conversion efficiency and the coherence time of various types of diamond samples with different initial nitrogen concentrations. The samples were irradiated using a 200 keV transmission electron microscope. Our study reveals that the efficiency of NV creation strongly depends on the initial conversion efficiency and on the initial nitrogen concentration. The irradiation of the examined samples exhibits an order of magnitude improvement in the NV concentration (up to ā¼1011 NV/cm2), without degradation in their coherence time of ā¼180 Ī¼s. We address the potential of this technique toward the study of many-body physics of NV ensembles and the creation of non-classical spin states for quantum sensing.