Diamond photonics is an ever-growing field of research driven by the prospects of harnessing diamond and its colour centres as suitable hardware for solid-state quantum applications. The last two decades have seen the field shaped by the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre with both breakthrough fundamental physics demonstrations and practical realizations. Recently however, an entire suite of other diamond defects has emerged—group IV colour centres—namely the Si-, Ge-, Sn- and Pb-vacancies. In this perspective, we highlight the leading techniques for engineering and characterizing these diamond defects, discuss the current state-of-the-art group IV-based devices and provide an outlook of the future directions the field is taking towards the realisation of solid-state quantum photonics with diamond.

We experimentally demonstrate quantum enhanced resolution in confocal fluorescence microscopy exploiting the nonclassical photon statistics of single nitrogen-vacancy color centers in diamond. By developing a general model of superresolution based on the direct sampling of the kth-order autocorrelation function of the photoluminescence signal, we show the possibility to resolve, in principle, arbitrarily close emitting centers. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.143602 PACS numbers: 42.50.-p, 42.30.Va, 42.50.Ar, 42.50.St In the last decade, measurement techniques enhanced by using peculiar properties of quantum light [1,2] have been successfully demonstrated in several remarkable real application scenarios, for example, interferometric measurements aimed to reveal gravitational waves and the quantum gravity effect [3,4], biological particle tracking [5], phase contrast microscopy [6], and imaging [7,8]. Very recently, a novel technique to beat the diffraction limit in microscopy that relies on the antibunching behavior of photons emitted by single fluophores has been proposed [9], and realized in wide field microscopy [10] by using an EMCCD camera.The maximum obtainable imaging resolution in classical far-field fluorescence microscopy, according to the Abbe diffraction limit, is R ≃ 0.61λ=NA, where λ is the wavelength of the light and NA is the numerical aperture of the objective. This restricts the current capability of precisely measuring the position of very small objects such as single photon emitters (color centers, quantum dots, etc.) [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19], limiting their potential exploitation in the frame quantum technology [20,21]. In general, the research of methods to obtain a microscopy resolution below the diffraction limit is a topic of the utmost interest [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] that could provide dramatic improvement in the observation of several systems spanning from quantum dots [30] to living cells [31][32][33][34]. As a notable example, in several entanglement-related experiments using strongly coupled single photon emitters it is of the utmost importance to measure their positions with the highest spatial resolution [35]. In principle, this limitation can be overcome by recently developed microscopy techniques such as stimulated emission depletion (STED) and ground state depletion (GSD) [36,37]. Nevertheless, even if they have been demonstrated effectively able to provide superresolved imaging in many specific applications, among which are color centers in diamond [38], they are characterized by rather specific experimental requirements (dual laser excitation system, availability of luminescence quenching mechanisms by stimulated emission, nontrivial shaping of the quenching beam, high power). Furthermore, these techniques are not suitable in applications in which the fluorescence is not optically induced [39,40], so that new methods are required for those applications.Inspired by the works in [9], in this Letter we develop a comprehensive theory of superresolution ima...

The fabrication of luminescent defects in single-crystal diamond upon Sn implantation and annealing is reported. The relevant spectral features of the optical centers (emission peaks at 593.5, 620.3, 630.7, and 646.7 nm) are attributed to Sn-related defects through the correlation of their photoluminescence (PL) intensity with the implantation fluence. Single Sn-related defects were identified and characterized through the acquisition of their second-order autocorrelation emission functions, by means of Hanbury-Brown and Twiss interferometry. The investigation of their single-photon emission regime as a function of excitation laser power revealed that Sn-related defects are based on three-level systems with a 6 ns radiative decay lifetime. In a fraction of the studied centers, the observation of a blinking PL emission is indicative of the existence of a dark state. Furthermore, absorption dependence on the polarization of the excitation radiation with ∼45% contrast was measured. This work shed light on the existence of a new optical center associated with a group-IV impurity in diamond, with similar photophysical properties to the already well-known Si–V and Ge–V emitters, thus, providing results of interest from both the fundamental and applicative points of view.

We have measured the radiation tolerance of poly-crystalline and single-crystalline diamonds grown by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process by measuring the charge collected before and after irradiation in a 50 m pitch strip detector fabricated on each diamond sample. We irradiated one group of sensors with 800 MeV protons, and a second group of sensors with 24 GeV protons, in steps, to protons cm−2 and protons cm−2 respectively. We observe the sum of mean drift paths for electrons and holes for both poly-crystalline CVD diamond and single-crystalline CVD diamond decreases with irradiation fluence from its initial value according to a simple damage curve characterized by a damage constant for each irradiation energy and the irradiation fluence. We find for each irradiation energy the damage constant, for poly-crystalline CVD diamond to be the same within statistical errors as the damage constant for single-crystalline CVD diamond. We find the damage constant for diamond irradiated with 24 GeV protons to be and the damage constant for diamond irradiated with 800 MeV protons to be . Moreover, we observe the pulse height decreases with fluence for poly-crystalline CVD material and within statistical errors does not change with fluence for single-crystalline CVD material for both 24 GeV proton irradiation and 800 MeV proton irradiation. Finally, we have measured the uniformity of each sample as a function of fluence and observed that for poly-crystalline CVD diamond the samples become more uniform with fluence while for single-crystalline CVD diamond the uniformity does not change with fluence.

Single-photon sources are a fundamental element for developing quantum technologies, and sources based on colour centres in diamonds are among the most promising candidates. The well-known nitrogen vacancy centres are characterized by several limitations, and thus few other defects have recently been considered. In the present work, we characterize, in detail, native efficient single colour centres emitting in the near infra-red (λ = 740-780 nm) in both standard IIa single-crystal and electronic-grade polycrystalline commercial chemical vapour deposited (CVD) diamond samples. In the former case, a hightemperature (T > 1000°C) annealing process in vacuum is necessary to induce the formation/activation of luminescent centres with good emission properties, while in the latter case the annealing process has marginally beneficial effects on the number and performance of native centres in commercially available samples. Although displaying significant variability in several photo-physical properties (emission wavelength, emission rate instabilities, saturation behaviours), these centres generally display appealing photophysical properties for Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. applications as single photon sources: short lifetimes (0.7-3 ns), high emission rates (∼50-500 × 10 3 photons s −1 ) and strongly (>95%) polarized light. The native centres are tentatively attributed to impurities incorporated in the diamond crystal during the CVD growth of high-quality type-IIa samples, and offer promising perspectives in diamond-based photonics.Single photon sources represent a key element for developing quantum technologies [1][2][3][4]. Diamond offers a promising platform for the implementation of single-photon-emitter architectures, due to the vast range of available luminescent defects [5,6] with suitable emission properties that can be allocated in a broadly transparent crystal structure. The nitrogenvacancy (NV − ) complex has established a prominent role as a single photon emitter in several pioneering works [7-9], due to its ubiquity, quantum efficiency and well-understood electronic transition structure [10]. In the last decade, single NV − emitters were successfully employed to implement quantum cryptography schemes [11][12][13][14] as well as more fundamental demonstrations of quantum complementarity and entanglement [15][16][17][18]. At the same time, the research in diamond-based single-photon sources has broadened to new types of defects, with the goal of overcoming some inherent limitations in the NV − centre, namely its strong phonon coupling, relatively long lifetime and charge-state blinking. In particular, the identification of centres emitting in the near-infrared (NIR) offers the perspective of combining diamond colour centres with Si-based photodetectors in the spectral range where they are maximally efficient...

We provide the first systematic characterization of the structural and photoluminescence properties of optically active centers fabricated upon implantation of 30–100 keV Mg+ ions in synthetic diamond. The structural configurations of Mg-related defects were studied by the electron emission channeling technique for short-lived, radioactive 27Mg implantations at the CERN-ISOLDE facility, performed both at room temperature and 800 °C, which allowed the identification of a major fraction of Mg atoms (∼30 to 42%) in sites which are compatible with the split-vacancy structure of the MgV complex. A smaller fraction of Mg atoms (∼13 to 17%) was found on substitutional sites. The photoluminescence emission was investigated both at the ensemble and individual defect level in the 5–300 K temperature range, offering a detailed picture of the MgV-related emission properties and revealing the occurrence of previously unreported spectral features. The optical excitability of the MgV center was also studied as a function of the optical excitation wavelength to identify the optimal conditions for photostable and intense emission. The results are discussed in the context of the preliminary experimental data and the theoretical models available in the literature, with appealing perspectives for the utilization of the tunable properties of the MgV center for quantum information processing applications.

Focused MeV ion beams with micrometric resolution are suitable tools for the direct writing of conductive graphitic channels buried in an insulating diamond bulk, as already demonstrated for different device applications. In this work we apply this fabrication method to the electrical excitation of color centers in diamond, demonstrating the potential of electrical stimulation in diamond-based single-photon sources. Differently from optically-stimulated light emission from color centers in diamond, electroluminescence (EL) requires a high current flowing in the diamond subgap states between the electrodes. With this purpose, buried graphitic electrode pairs, 10 μm spaced, were fabricated in the bulk of a single-crystal diamond sample using a 6 MeV C microbeam. The electrical characterization of the structure showed a significant current injection above an effective voltage threshold of 150 V, which enabled the stimulation of a stable EL emission. The EL imaging allowed to identify the electroluminescent regions and the residual vacancy distribution associated with the fabrication technique. Measurements evidenced isolated electroluminescent spots where non-classical light emission in the 560–700 nm spectral range was observed. The spectral and auto-correlation features of the EL emission were investigated to qualify the non-classical properties of the color centers.

The control of the charge state of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond is of primary importance for the stabilization of their quantum-optical properties, in applications ranging from quantum sensing to quantum computing. In this work buried current-injecting graphitic micro-electrodes were fabricated in bulk diamond by means of a 6 MeV C 3+ scanning micro-beam. The electrodes were exploited to control the variation in the relative population of the negative (NV − ) and neutral (NV 0 ) charge states of sub-superficial NV centers located in the inter-electrode gap regions. Photoluminescence spectra exhibited an electrically-induced increase up to 40% in the NV − population at the expense of the NV 0 charge state, with a linear dependence from the injected current at applied biases smaller than 250V, and was interpreted as the result of electron trapping at NV sites. An * Corresponding author: Tel +39 011 6707306, forneris@to.infn.it, J. Forneris et al., "Electrical control of sub-superficial NV centers in diamond…" p. ! 2 abrupt current increase at ∼300V bias resulted in a strong electroluminescence from the NV0 centers, in addition to two spectrally sharp emission lines at 563.5 nm and 580 nm, not visible under optical excitation and attributed to self-interstitial defects. These results disclose new possibilities in the electrical control of the charge state of NV centers located in the diamond bulk, which are characterized by longer spin coherence times.