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7Enigmatic color centers in diamonds with bright, stable, and
narrow-band fluorescence
ANeliubov1'2*, I. Eremchev3, V. Drachev1, S. Kosolobov1, E. Ekimov4, A. Naumov23
1- Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, 121205, Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia 2- Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Troitsk Branch, Moscow, Troitsk 108840,
Russia
3- Institute for Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Troitsk 108840, Russia
4- Institute for High Pressure Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Troitsk 108840, Russia
Color centers in diamonds attract great scientific attention due to their properties promising for sensing, biomarking, quantum information and quantum optics. The most studied and well-known color center in diamond to date is the Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center, which soon after its discovery showed great potential for various applications. However, a set of drawbacks accompanying NV centers has prompted researchers to introduce other elements of the Periodic table into the diamond lattice and, thus, to create new impurity centers with improved optical properties. Currently, the list of known color centers in diamond includes over a hundred of different examples and continues to grow [1].
In this work, we report the discovery and comprehensive characterization of new, as yet unidentified impurity centers in microdiamonds using combined scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and fluorescence spectroscopy (Fig. 1.a) [2]. The microdiamonds of study were synthesized by the high temperature-high pressure method. Most of the fluorescence signal of the detected emitters is concentrated in a narrow (up to 390 GHz at room temperature) and bright Zero-Phonon Line (ZPL). A typical photoluminescence spectrum of a single center is shown in Fig. 1.b. The photoluminescence excitation spectrum is also narrowband. In addition, we demonstrate the temperature sensitivity, spectral stability, and polarization dependence of ZPL. These results indicate that the discovered emitters have superior optical properties comparing to the known color centers and, thus, have great potential for applications.
I
b)
645GHz
610 630 650 670 690 710 Wavelength, nm
Fig. 1. (a) Combined SEM image and fluorescence map of a microdiamond cluster with two spatially resolved emission sources. (b) Photoluminescence spectrum of the bottom emitter in (a).
[1] K. Liu, S. Zhang, V. Ralchenko, et al, Advanced Materials 33 (6): p. 2000891 (2021).
[2] A. Neliubov, I. Eremchev, V. Drachev, et al, Physical Review B 107, L081406 (2023).
