Enhanced single-photon emission from a diamond–silver aperture

Jennifer T Choy,Thomas M Babinec,Amir Yacoby,Birgit J M Hausmann,Patrick Maletinsky,Mughees Khan,Marko Lončar,Irfan Bulu

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2011.249

Jennifer T Choy, Thomas M Babinec + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2011.249

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Journal: Nature Photonics	Publication Date: Oct 9, 2011
Citations: 202	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: Harvard University

Abstract

We have developed a scalable method for coupling single color centers in diamond to plasmonic resonators and demonstrated Purcell enhancement of the single photon emission rate of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. Our structures consist of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center-containing diamond nanoposts embedded in a thin silver film. We have utilized the strong plasmon resonances in the diamond-silver apertures to enhance the spontaneous emission of the enclosed dipole. The devices were realized by a combination of ion implantation and top-down nanofabrication techniques, which have enabled deterministic coupling between single NV centers and the plasmonic modes for multiple devices in parallel. The plasmon-enhanced NV centers exhibited over six-fold improvements in spontaneous emission rate in comparison to bare nanoposts and up to a factor of 3.6 in radiative lifetime reduction over bulk samples, with comparable increases in photon counts. The hybrid diamond-plasmon system presented here could provide a stable platform for the implementation of diamond-based quantum information processing and magnetometry schemes.

Highlights

Solid-state single photon sources, such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond1, are robust systems for practical realizations of various quantum information processing protocols2-8 and nanoscale magnetometry schemes9-10 at room temperature
We have developed a scalable method for coupling single color centers in diamond to plasmonic resonators and demonstrated Purcell enhancement of the single photon emission rate of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers
We demonstrate a scalable method to enhance the radiative emission rate of single NV centers using plasmonic apertures that preserve the critical properties of the NV center for quantum information, including nonclassical photon statistics and optically-detected electron spin resonance contrast

Summary

Introduction

Solid-state single photon sources, such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond1, are robust systems for practical realizations of various quantum information processing protocols2-8 and nanoscale magnetometry schemes9-10 at room temperature. Abstract We have developed a scalable method for coupling single color centers in diamond to plasmonic resonators and demonstrated Purcell enhancement of the single photon emission rate of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. Our structures consist of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center-containing diamond nanoposts embedded in a thin silver film.

Results

Conclusion