Abstract
We investigate phonon induced electronic dynamics in the ground and excited states of the negatively charged silicon-vacancy () centre in diamond. Optical transition line widths, transition wavelength and excited state lifetimes are measured for the temperature range 4 K–350 K. The ground state orbital relaxation rates are measured using time-resolved fluorescence techniques. A microscopic model of the thermal broadening in the excited and ground states of the centre is developed. A vibronic process involving single-phonon transitions is found to determine orbital relaxation rates for both the ground and the excited states at cryogenic temperatures. We discuss the implications of our findings for coherence of qubits in the ground states and propose methods to extend coherence times of qubits.
Highlights
Colour centres in diamond have emerged as attractive systems for applications in quantum metrology, quantum communication, and quantum information processing [1,2,3]
Diamond has a large band gap which allows for optical control, and it can be synthesized with high purity, enabling long coherence times as was demonstrated for nitrogen-vacancy (NV−) spin qubits [4]
The non-radiative decay rate γnr (T) has a very weak temperature dependence, as discussed later in section 2.3, leading to a small contribution compared to the other rates for all temperature regions of interest
Summary
Kay D Jahnke, Alp Sipahigil, Jan M Binder, Marcus W Doherty, Mathias Metsch, Lachlan J Rogers, Neil B Manson, Mikhail D Lukin and Fedor Jelezko.
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