Dependence of nitrogen vacancy color centers on nitrogen concentration in synthetic diamond

Abstract

Crystallization of diamond with different nitrogen concentrations was carried out with a FeNiCo–C system at pressure of 6.5 GPa. As the nitrogen concentration in diamond increased, the color of the synthesized diamond crystals changed from colorless to yellow and finally to atrovirens (a dark green). All the Raman peaks for the obtained crystals were located at about 1330 cm−1 and contained only the sp3 hybrid diamond phase. Based on Fourier transform infrared results, the nitrogen concentration of the colorless diamond was < 1 ppm and absorption peaks corresponding to nitrogen impurities were not detected. However, the C-center nitrogen concentration of the atrovirens diamond reached 1030 ppm and the value of A-center nitrogen was approximately 180 ppm with a characteristic absorption peak at 1282 cm−1. Furthermore, neither the NV0 nor the NV− optical color center existed in diamond crystal with nitrogen impurities of less than 1 ppm by photoluminescence measurement. However, Ni-related centers located at 695 nm and 793.6 nm were observed in colorless diamond. The NE8 color center at 793.6 nm has more potential for application than the common NV centers. NV0 and NV− optical color centers coexist in diamond without any additives in the synthesis system. Importantly, only the NV− color center was noticed in diamond with a higher nitrogen concentration, which maximized optimization of the NV−/NV0 ratio in the diamond structure. This study has provided a new way to prepare diamond containing only NV− optical color centers.