Abstract
Atomic-sized fluorescent defects in diamond are widely recognized as a promising solid state platform for quantum cryptography and quantum information processing. For these applications, single photon sources with a high intensity and reproducible fabrication methods are required. In this study, we report a novel color center in diamond, composed of a germanium (Ge) and a vacancy (V) and named the GeV center, which has a sharp and strong photoluminescence band with a zero-phonon line at 602 nm at room temperature. We demonstrate this new color center works as a single photon source. Both ion implantation and chemical vapor deposition techniques enabled fabrication of GeV centers in diamond. A first-principles calculation revealed the atomic crystal structure and energy levels of the GeV center.
Highlights
Energy levels of the SiV and GeV color centers were calculated within the density functional theory (DFT) using PBE functional to investigate the origin of the fluorescence wavelength difference (SiV has a zero phonon line (ZPL) at 738 nm21)
We have demonstrated that GeV centers can be reliably and reproducibly fabricated in diamond by ion implantation under various implantation conditions
It was confirmed that GeV centers can form by the incorporation of germanium during microwave plasma CVD (MPCVD) growth, and these show less variation of the ZPL peak positions
Summary
It should be noted that this peak was not observed by ion implantation of different elements (see Supplementary Information Fig. S2). Energy levels of the SiV and GeV color centers were calculated within the density functional theory (DFT) using PBE functional to investigate the origin of the fluorescence wavelength difference (SiV has a ZPL at 738 nm[21]).
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