Fabrication of $^{15}\textrm{NV}^{-}$ centers in diamond using a deterministic single ion implanter

Abstract

Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are a platform for several important quantum technologies, including sensing, communication and elementary quantum processors. In this letter we demonstrate the creation of NV centers by implantation using a deterministic single ion source. For this we sympathetically laser-cool single 15 N + 2 molecular ions in a Paul trap and extract them at an energy of 5.9 keV. Subsequently the ions are focused with a lateral resolution of 121(35) nm and are implanted into a diamond substrate without any spatial filtering by apertures or masks. After high-temperature annealing, we detect the NV centers in a confocal microscope and determine a conversion efficiency of about 0.6 %. The 15 NV centers are characterized by optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) on the hyperfine transition and coherence time.

Recoil implantation using gas-phase precursor molecules

“…However, the ion species are limited by the ion source, which is typically a liquid metal ion source [6][7][8] , a plasma source 9 , or a gas field ionization source. 10 A recent demonstration has expanded this to a Paul trap, where ions are captured in an electrostatic trap and then accelerated towards a target, 11,12 and techniques such as implantation through a pierced AFM tip have been used to achieve precise spatial localization. 13, Further to the above, we have recently demonstrated the use of recoil implantation [16][17][18] in combination with a standard FIB system.…”