Abstract
Single-photon emitters with stable and uniform photoluminescence properties are important for quantum technology. However, in many cases, colour centres in diamond exhibit spectral diffusion and photoluminescence intensity fluctuation. It is therefore essential to investigate the dynamics of colour centres at the single defect level in order to enable the on-demand manipulation and improved applications in quantum technology. Here we report the polarization switching, intensity jumps and spectral shifting observed on a negatively charged single silicon-vacancy colour centre in diamond. The observed phenomena elucidate the single emitter dynamics induced by photoionization of nearby electron donors in the diamond.
Highlights
Diamond is a beautiful and precious stone, but it is the defects in the diamond crystal that attract much attention for research around the world
We report the observation of a single SiV− colour centre in diamond showing fluorescence intensity switching in a two-level regime at ambient conditions, which was proved to have two switching linear polarizations
SiV− colour centres prepared by ion implantation was investigated with a scanning confocal microscope
Summary
Diamond is a beautiful and precious stone, but it is the defects in the diamond crystal that attract much attention for research around the world. The negatively charged silicon vacancy (SiV−) colour centre has been reported as a good candidate for single-photon source due to its remarkable optical properties and electronic structure[14,15]. The PL from SiV colour centres can show near 100% polarization contrast, and have high potential for applications in quantum information processing and cryptography[16]. Polarization properties of single colour centres in diamond are extremely important for applications such as in quantum cryptography where the photon polarization encodes the information, and so forth. We report the observation of a single SiV− colour centre in diamond showing fluorescence intensity switching in a two-level regime at ambient conditions, which was proved to have two switching linear polarizations.
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