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Characterisation of CVD diamond with high concentrations of nitrogen for magnetic-field sensing applications

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2021-01-05
JournalMaterials for Quantum Technology
AuthorsAndrew M. Edmonds, Connor Hart, Matthew Turner, Pierre-Olivier Colard, Jennifer M. Schloss
InstitutionsLockheed Martin (United States), University of Maryland, College Park
Citations73

Abstract Ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in diamond are a leading platform for practical quantum sensors. Reproducible and scalable fabrication of NV-ensembles with desired properties is crucial, as is an understanding of how those properties influence performance. This work addresses these issues by characterising nitrogen-doped diamond produced by the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) method across a range of synthesis conditions. This is shown to produce material with widely differing absorption characteristics, which is linked to the level of defects other than substitutional nitrogen (N S ) and NV. In such material, the achievable concentration of NV − ([NV − ]) is found to be influenced by the as-grown properties. At the 10-20 ppm level for [N S ], the production of CVD-grown material with strain levels sufficient not to limit achievable device sensitivity is demonstrated and a favourable product of [NV − ] and <mml:math xmlns:mml=“http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML” display=“inline” overflow=“scroll”> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>T</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>*</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> is obtained. Additionally, reproducible properties over a batch of 23 samples from a single synthesis run are achieved, which appears promising for the scalability efforts underway in this area of research.