Effect of low-damage inductively coupled plasma on shallow nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

Journal Article · Mon Aug 17 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4929356· OSTI ID:22492701

Fávaro de Oliveira, Felipe; Momenzadeh, S. Ali; Wang, Ya; Denisenko, Andrej ^[1]; Konuma, Mitsuharu ^[2]; Markham, Matthew; Edmonds, Andrew M. ^[3]; Wrachtrup, Jörg ^[1]

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1. 3. Institute of Physics, Research Center SCoPE and IQST, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart (Germany)
2. Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, 70569 Stuttgart (Germany)
3. Element Six Innovation, Harwell Oxford, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QR (United Kingdom)

Near-surface nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have been successfully employed as atomic-sized magnetic field sensors for external spins over the last years. A key challenge is still to develop a method to bring NV centers at nanometer proximity to the diamond surface while preserving their optical and spin properties. To that aim we present a method of controlled diamond etching with nanometric precision using an oxygen inductively coupled plasma process. Importantly, no traces of plasma-induced damages to the etched surface could be detected by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and confocal photoluminescence microscopy techniques. In addition, by profiling the depth of NV centers created by 5.0 keV of nitrogen implantation energy, no plasma-induced quenching in their fluorescence could be observed. Moreover, the developed etching process allowed even the channeling tail in their depth distribution to be resolved. Furthermore, treating a {sup 12}C isotopically purified diamond revealed a threefold increase in T{sub 2} times for NV centers with <4 nm of depth (measured by nuclear magnetic resonance signal from protons at the diamond surface) in comparison to the initial oxygen-terminated surface.

• OSTI ID: 22492701
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 7; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
CARBON 12
CHANNELING
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DIAMONDS
ETCHING
FLUORESCENCE
KEV RANGE 01-10
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MICROSCOPY
NANOSTRUCTURES
NITROGEN
NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE
OXYGEN
PHOTOLUMINESCENCE
PROTONS
QUENCHING
SENSORS
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
VACANCIES
X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY