Fabrication of GaP disk resonator arrays coupled to nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

Abstract

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers coupled to scalable optical networks have the potential to realize solid-state quantum information processing platforms. Toward this goal, we demonstrate coupling of near-surface NV- centers to an array of GaP optical resonators. The use of GaP as the optical waveguiding materials is appealing due to the possibility of realizing integrated photonic switches based on the linear electro-optic effect. We explore large-area integration of GaP on diamond through two routes: molecular beam deposition directly onto diamond substrates and layer transfer of single-crystalline sheets. While the direct deposition benefits from simpler, monolithic processing, the layer transfer route benefits from higher material quality. In the latter approach, we demonstrate the transfer of submicrometer thick, mm2-sized GaP sheets from a GaP/AlGaP/GaP substrate to a diamond sample prepared with near-surface NV- centers. We fabricate large arrays of GaP disk resonators with varying diameters (1 to 20 μm) on the diamond substrate via electron beam lithography and dry etching, and show coupling of the NV- center emission to the cavity structures. Quality factors above 10,000 were observed in 5 μm diameter disks on the non-etched diamond substrate. Similar quality factors in smaller sized devices are expected with diamond substrate etching to further confine the optical mode. This approach opens a path towards the integration of coupled optical components in the hybrid GaP/diamond system, an essential step towards large-scale photonic networks utilizing NV- centers in diamond.