Productivity of Concentration-Dependent Conversion of Substitutional Nitrogen Atoms into Nitrogen-Vacancy Quantum Emitters in Synthetic-Diamond by Ultrashort Laser Pulses

Abstract

Tightly focused 515-nm, 0.3-ps laser pulses modify in a laser filamentation regime the crystalline structure of an Ib-type high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) synthesized diamond in a thin-plate form. The modified microregions (micromarks) in the yellow and colorless crystal zones, possessing different concentrations of elementary substitutional nitrogen (N) impurity atoms (C-centers), exhibit their strongly diminished local IR absorption (upon correction to the thickness scaling factor). Simultaneously, local visible-range (400–550 nm) absorption coefficients were increased, and photoluminescence (PL) yield was strongly enhanced in the broad range of 450–800 nm. The strong yellow-red PL enhancement saturates with laser exposure, implying the complete conversion of C-centers into nitrogen-vacancy (NV0,−) ones due to the laser-induced generation of Frenkel “interstitial-vacancy” I–V carbon pairs. The other emerging blue-green (>470 nm) and green-yellow (>500 nm) PL bands were also simultaneously saturated versus the laser exposure. The observed IR/optical absorption and PL spectral changes enlighten the ultrashort pulse laser inscription of NV0−-based quantum-emitter centers in synthetic diamonds and enable the evaluation of the productivity of their inscription along with the corresponding I–V generation rates.

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Sensing of «Hidden» Atomistic and Cooperative Defects in Femtosecond Laser-Inscribed Photoluminescent Encoding Patterns in Diamond

“…After the laser modification of the diamond, the changes registered by the PL method were expressed as an increase in the intensity of the luminescence of H3, NV 0 , and NV − centers. In our previous studies, we investigated the effect of laser exposure time, demonstrating its saturation in Ia and Ib diamonds [33,41].…”

Spectroscopy of Single Crystal Diamond Plates Modified by Proton Beams to Create NV Centers

“…Defects in diamonds can be studied well by IR spectroscopy [13,14]. The study of the defects themselves by IR spectroscopy alone will not give a complete picture of the material itself and its properties.…”