Understanding the capture of charge carriers by colour centres in semiconductors is important for the development of novel forms of sensing and quantum information processing, but experiments typically involve ensemble measurements, often impacted by defect proximity. In this study, we show that confocal fluorescence microscopy and magnetic resonance can be used to induce and probe charge transport between individual nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond at room temperature. In our experiments, a ‘source’ nitrogen vacancy undergoes optically driven cycles of ionization and recombination to produce a stream of photogenerated carriers, one of which is subsequently captured by a ‘target’ nitrogen vacancy several micrometres away. We use a spin-to-charge conversion scheme to encode the spin state of the source colour centre into the charge state of the target, which allows us to set an upper bound to carrier injection from other background defects. We attribute our observations to the action of unscreened Coulomb potentials producing giant carrier capture cross-sections, orders of magnitude greater than those measured in ensembles.
Lozovoi, Artur, et al. "Optical activation and detection of charge transport between individual colour centres in diamond." Nature Electronics, vol. 4, no. 10, Oct. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-021-00656-z
Lozovoi, Artur, Jayakumar, Harishankar, Daw, Damon, Vizkelethy, Gyorgy, Bielejec, Edward, Doherty, Marcus W., Flick, Johannes, & Meriles, Carlos A. (2021). Optical activation and detection of charge transport between individual colour centres in diamond. Nature Electronics, 4(10). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-021-00656-z
Lozovoi, Artur, Jayakumar, Harishankar, Daw, Damon, et al., "Optical activation and detection of charge transport between individual colour centres in diamond," Nature Electronics 4, no. 10 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-021-00656-z
@article{osti_1834150,
author = {Lozovoi, Artur and Jayakumar, Harishankar and Daw, Damon and Vizkelethy, Gyorgy and Bielejec, Edward and Doherty, Marcus W. and Flick, Johannes and Meriles, Carlos A.},
title = {Optical activation and detection of charge transport between individual colour centres in diamond},
annote = {Understanding the capture of charge carriers by colour centres in semiconductors is important for the development of novel forms of sensing and quantum information processing, but experiments typically involve ensemble measurements, often impacted by defect proximity. In this study, we show that confocal fluorescence microscopy and magnetic resonance can be used to induce and probe charge transport between individual nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond at room temperature. In our experiments, a ‘source’ nitrogen vacancy undergoes optically driven cycles of ionization and recombination to produce a stream of photogenerated carriers, one of which is subsequently captured by a ‘target’ nitrogen vacancy several micrometres away. We use a spin-to-charge conversion scheme to encode the spin state of the source colour centre into the charge state of the target, which allows us to set an upper bound to carrier injection from other background defects. We attribute our observations to the action of unscreened Coulomb potentials producing giant carrier capture cross-sections, orders of magnitude greater than those measured in ensembles.},
doi = {10.1038/s41928-021-00656-z},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1834150},
journal = {Nature Electronics},
issn = {ISSN 2520-1131},
number = {10},
volume = {4},
place = {United States},
publisher = {Springer Nature},
year = {2021},
month = {10}}
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF); Australian Research Council (ARC)
Ziegler, James F.; Ziegler, M. D.; Biersack, J. P.
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, Vol. 268, Issue 11-12https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2010.02.091