Microcavities in single crystal diamond

Abstract

The diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center is an optically active impurity which combines many of the desirable properties of single quantum dots and laser trapped atoms. The electron spin and excited state of single NV centers can be controlled using optical transitions with sub-GHz inhomogenous linewidths, and room temperature electron-spin coherence times can exceed a ms. These properties make the NV center promising for proposed quantum networks [1], and for applications such as magnetometry and low power optical switching. Integrating NV centers with nanophotonic devices would improve the efficiency of the optical readout and control of NV centers, and enable scalable optical coupling between multiple NV centers. However, creating nanophotonic devices from diamond is a relatively unexplored area of research. In this presentation we review our recent progress in creating diamond-based nanophotonic systems optically coupled to NV centers.