Nanostructured and bulk silicon carbide (SiC) has recently emerged as a novel platform for quantum nanophotonics due to its harboring of paramagnetic color centers, having immediate applications as a single photon source and spin optical probes. Here, using ultra-short pulsed laser ablation, we fabricated from electron irradiated bulk 4H-SiC, 40-50 nm diameter SiC nanoparticles, fluorescent at 850-950 nm. This photoluminescence is attributed to the silicon vacancy color centers. We demonstrate that the original silicon vacancy color centers from the target sample were retained in the final nanoparticles solution, exhibiting excellent colloidal stability in water over several months. Our work is relevant for quantum nanophotonics, magnetic sensing, and biomedical imaging applications.

Hydrogenated detonation nanodiamonds are of great interest for emerging applications in areas from biology and medicine to lubrication. Here, we compare the two main hydrogenation techniques—annealing in hydrogen and plasma-assisted hydrogenation—for the creation of detonation nanodiamonds with a hydrogen terminated surface from the same starting material. Synchrotron-based soft X-ray spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy, and electron energy loss spectroscopy were employed to quantify diamond and non-diamond carbon contents and determine the surface chemistries of all samples. Dynamic light scattering was used to study the particles’ colloidal properties in water. For the first time, steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy analysis at temperatures from room temperature down to 10 K was performed to investigate the particles’ fluorescence properties. Our results show that both hydrogenation techniques produce hydrogenated detonation nanodiamonds with overall similar physico-chemical and fluorescence properties.

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