Perfect alignment and preferential orientation of nitrogen-vacancy centers during chemical vapor deposition diamond growth on (111) surfaces

Journal Article · Mon Mar 10 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4868128· OSTI ID:22257747

Michl, Julia; Zaiser, Sebastian; Jakobi, Ingmar; Waldherr, Gerald; Dolde, Florian; Neumann, Philipp; Wrachtrup, Jörg ^[1]; Teraji, Tokuyuki ^[2]; Doherty, Marcus W.; Manson, Neil B. ^[3]; Isoya, Junichi ^[4]

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1. 3rd Institute of Physics, Research Center SCoPE and IQST, University of Stuttgart, 70550 Stuttgart (Germany)
2. Optical and Electronic Materials Unit, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044 (Japan)
3. Laser Physics Centre, Research School of Physics and Engineering, Australian National University, Australian Capital Territory 0200 (Australia)
4. Research Center for Knowledge Communities, University of Tsukuba, 1-2 Kasuga, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8550 (Japan)

Synthetic diamond production is a key to the development of quantum metrology and quantum information applications of diamond. The major quantum sensor and qubit candidate in diamond is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center. This lattice defect comes in four different crystallographic orientations leading to an intrinsic inhomogeneity among NV centers, which is undesirable in some applications. Here, we report a microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition diamond growth technique on (111)-oriented substrates, which yields perfect alignment (94% ± 2%) of as-grown NV centers along a single crystallographic direction. In addition, clear evidence is found that the majority (74% ± 4%) of the aligned NV centers were formed by the nitrogen being first included in the (111) growth surface and then followed by the formation of a neighboring vacancy on top. The achieved homogeneity of the grown NV centers will tremendously benefit quantum information and metrology applications.

• OSTI ID: 22257747
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 10; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
COLOR CENTERS
CRYSTAL GROWTH
CRYSTAL GROWTH METHODS
CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
DIAMONDS
MICROWAVE RADIATION
NITROGEN