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Cavity-enhanced emission and absorption of color centers in a diamond membrane with selectable strain

MetadataDetails
Publication Date2025-03-20
JournalPhysical Review Applied
AuthorsRobert Berghaus, Selene Sachero, Gregor Bayer, Julia Heupel, Tobias Herzig
InstitutionsUniversity of Kassel, Leipzig University
Citations2

Group IV color centers in diamond are among the most promising optically active electron-spin systems with strong optical transitions and long spin coherences. The orbital ground-state splitting of the center is particularly important to suppress the interaction with coherence-limiting phonons. A higher orbital ground-state splitting improves the spin-coherence properties and sets the upper limit for the operating temperature. Negatively charged silicon-vacancy centers have an ordinary ground-state splitting from spin-orbit coupling of only <a:math xmlns:a=“http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML” display=“inline” overflow=“scroll”><a:mn>48</a:mn><a:mspace width=“0.1em”/><a:mrow><a:mi mathvariant=“normal”>G</a:mi><a:mi>Hz</a:mi></a:mrow></a:math>, resulting in required temperatures below 1 K, which can only be achieved by dilution refrigerators. Here, we increase the orbital ground-state splitting by up to an order of magnitude by induced strain in a single-crystal diamond membrane. The characterized orbital ground-state splitting in highly strained regions could allow for electron-spin-coherence times of milliseconds at <f:math xmlns:f=“http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML” display=“inline” overflow=“scroll”><f:mrow><f:mn>1.5</f:mn></f:mrow><f:mspace width=“0.1em”/><f:mrow><f:mrow><f:mi mathvariant=“normal”>K</f:mi></f:mrow></f:mrow></f:math>. We demonstrate cavity-assisted spectroscopy enabled by coupling the emitter ensemble with a selectable strain to the mode of a Fabry-Perot microcavity. Calculation of the absorption cross section yields <k:math xmlns:k=“http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML” display=“inline” overflow=“scroll”><k:msubsup><k:mi>σ</k:mi><k:mi>abs</k:mi><k:mi>ens</k:mi></k:msubsup><k:mo>≈</k:mo><k:mn>4.9</k:mn><k:mo>⋅</k:mo><k:msup><k:mn>10</k:mn><k:mrow><k:mo>−</k:mo><k:mn>11</k:mn></k:mrow></k:msup><k:mspace width=“0.1em”/><k:msup><k:mi>cm</k:mi><k:mn>2</k:mn></k:msup></k:math>. Furthermore, temperature-dependent lifetime measurements reveal a Purcell enhanced twofold reduction in emitter lifetime below <o:math xmlns:o=“http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML” display=“inline” overflow=“scroll”><o:mn>1</o:mn><o:mspace width=“0.1em”/><o:mi>ns</o:mi></o:math> at <s:math xmlns:s=“http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML” display=“inline” overflow=“scroll”><s:mn>4</s:mn><s:mspace width=“0.1em”/><s:mrow><s:mrow><s:mi mathvariant=“normal”>K</s:mi></s:mrow></s:mrow></s:math>.