We report electrical tuning by the Stark effect of the excited-state structure of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers located ≲100  nm from the diamond surface. The zero-phonon line (ZPL) emission frequency is controllably varied over a range of 300 GHz. Using high-resolution emission spectroscopy, we observe electrical tuning of the strengths of both cycling and spin-altering transitions. Under resonant excitation, we apply dynamic feedback to stabilize the ZPL frequency. The transition is locked over several minutes and drifts of the peak position on timescales ≳100  ms are reduced to a fraction of the single-scan linewidth, with standard deviation as low as 16 MHz (obtained for an NV in bulk, ultrapure diamond). These techniques should improve the entanglement success probability in quantum communications protocols.

Room temperature single-photon emission and quantum characterization is reported for isolated defects in zinc oxide. The defects are observed in thin films of both in-house synthesized and commercial zinc oxide nanoparticles. Emission spectra in the red and infrared, second-order photon correlation functions, lifetime measurements, and photon count rates are presented. Both two- and three-state emitters are identified. Sub-band gap absorption and red emission suggest these defects are the zinc vacancy. These results identify a new source of single photons in a readily available wide band gap semiconductor material which has exceptional electrical, optical, and biocompatibility properties.

Diamond based technologies offer a material platform for the implementation of qubits for quantum computing. The photonic crystal architecture provides the route for a scalable and controllable implementation of high quality factor (Q) nanocavities, operating in the strong coupling regime for cavity quantum electrodynamics. Here we compute the photonic band structures and quality factors of microcavities in photonic crystal slabs in diamond, and compare the results with those of the more commonly-used silicon platform. We find that, in spite of the lower index contrast, diamond based photonic crystal microcavities can exhibit quality factors of Q=3.0x10(4), sufficient for proof of principle demonstrations in the quantum regime.

Fabrication of a hybrid diamond‐glass material is reported, by embedding diamond nanocrystals containing nitrogen‐vacancy (NV) color centers into tellurite soft glass. This material allows the fabrication of diamond photonic waveguides using well‐established soft glass techniques, such as microstructured optical fiber technology (the figure is a confocal image that shows color center fluorescence in a fiber).

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We propose a novel concept for creating high-Q cavities in photonic crystal slabs (PCSs) composed of photosensitive material. To date, high-Q cavities have been realized through the use of double heterostructures where the lattice geometry is altered via nanolithography. Here, we show that selective postexposure to light of a uniform PCS composed of photosensitive material, altering the refractive index permanently, can also yield high-Q microcavities. We show theoretically that high-Q cavities (up to Q = 1 x 10(6)) can be achieved with photoinduced index changes that are well within what can be achieved in chalcogenide glasses.

The pixel size imposes a fundamental limit on the amount of information that can be displayed or recorded on a sensor. Thus, there is strong motivation to reduce the pixel size down to the nanometre scale. Nanometre colour pixels cannot be fabricated by simply downscaling current pixels due to colour cross talk and diffraction caused by dyes or pigments used as colour filters. Colour filters based on plasmonic effects can overcome these difficulties. Although different plasmonic colour filters have been demonstrated at the micron scale, there have been no attempts so far to reduce the filter size to the submicron scale. Here, we present for the first time a submicron plasmonic colour filter design together with a new challenge - pixel boundary errors at the submicron scale. We present simple but powerful filling schemes to produce submicron colour filters, which are free from pixel boundary errors and colour cross- talk, are polarization independent and angle insensitive, and based on LCD compatible aluminium technology. These results lay the basis for the development of submicron pixels in displays, RGB-spatial light modulators, liquid crystal over silicon, Google glasses and pico-projectors.

We design novel photonic crystal slab heterostructures, substituting the air in the holes with materials of refractive index higher than n=1. This can be achieved by infiltrating the photonic crystal slab (PCS) with liquid crystal, polymer or nano-porous silica. We find that the heterostructures designed in this way can have quality factors up to Q=10(6). This high-Q result is comparable with the result of previously reported designs in which the lattice is elongated in one direction. Unlike conventional heterostructures, our design does not require nanometre-scale changes in the geometry. Additionally, infiltrated PCS can be constructed at any time after PCS fabrication.