Room-Temperature Level Anticrossing and Cross-Relaxation Spectroscopy of Spin Color Centers in SiC Single Crystals and Nanostructures

Abstract

A sharp variation of the near infrared photoluminescence intensity for spin-3/2 color centers in hexagonal (4H-, 6H-) and rhombic (15R-) SiC polytypes in the vicinity of level anticrossing (LAC) and cross-relaxation in an external magnetic field at room temperature are observed. This effect can be used for a purely all-optical sensing of the magnetic field with nanoscale spatial resolution. A distinctive feature of the LAC signal is a weak dependence on the magnetic field direction that allows monitoring of the LAC signals in the nonoriented systems, such as powder materials, without need to determine the nanocrystal orientation in the sensing measurements. Furthermore, an LAC-like signal is also observed for the spin color centers (NV centers) in diamond in low magnetic fields with only marginal dependence on the magnetic field direction. This effect is enabled to detect weak magnetic fields using nanodiamond samples in the form of disordered mixture. In addition, the optically detected magnetic resonance and LAC techniques are suggested to serve as a simple method to determine the local stress in nanodiamonds under ambient conditions.