Nickel related optical centres in diamond created by ion implantation

Abstract

Ni-related optical centres in diamond are promising as alternatives to the nitrogen vacancy ͑NV͒ centre for quantum applications and biomarking. In order to achieve the reliability and reproducibility required, a method for producing the Ni-related centres in a controllable manner needs to be established. In this study, we have attempted this control by implanting high purity CVD diamond samples with Ni and N followed by thermal annealing. Samples implanted with Ni show a new Ni-related PL peak centered at 711 nm and a well known doublet at 883/885 nm along with weak NV luminescence. The optical properties of the two Ni-related defects are investigated. In particular, an excited state lifetime of the 883/885 nm peak is measured to be 11.6 ns.

Diamond Nanophotonics

“…Reports on lifetime (2 and 11.2 ns) and phonon coupling are ambiguous (70% emission in ZPL in [70] , 1% in [33] ). Creating NE8 centers remains challenging: ion implantation and highpressure high-temperature annealing did not yield NE8 centers [67] ; recent attempts incorporating nickel into single crystal diamond during CVD only produced ensembles but no single centers [68] . Nickel-silicon-complexes (ZPL 767-775 nm) [73] and other nickel related defects, the latter formed during CVD were investigated and showed bright, narrow emission [73][74][75] .…”

“…Nickel ions have successfully been incorporated into diamond using ion implantation [67] as well as doping during diamond growth [68] . A multitude of color centers containing nickel is known, especially in nitrogen rich high pressure high temperature (HPHT) diamond, where nickel is used as a catalyst and forms several complexes with nitrogen [69] .…”

Luminescence of natural carbon nanomaterial: Impact diamonds from the Popigai crater

“…Typical examples of "fast" centers in diamond are N3 with τ = 40 ns, H3 (16 ns) [13] and 1.40 eV system (interstitial Ni i + , 11.6 ns) [40]. Much recent attention has been given to centers in diamond which demonstrate a narrow ZPL and short excited state lifetime, and can be used in single photon emitters and bio-markers.…”

Chemical trends of substitutional transition-metal dopants in diamond: Anab initiostudy

“…Among Cr-related centers, a ZPL at 749 nm 15 has been attributed to an interstitial chromium and two other ZPL at 744 and 764 nm have been detected but the source has not yet been identified 16 . TM dopants can also be introduced by ion implantation 14,15 or during chemical vapor deposition (CVD) 13,16 , which offer the possibility of introducing the dopants substitutionally and without additional atoms or as part of a defect complex. Co-and Ni-related centers, with different nitrogen, boron and vacancy complexes, have been studied in various charge states by GGA calculations 21,22 , finding neutral substitutional Co to be stable in pure diamond for a Fermi energy E F between 3.0 and 3.6 eV, and neutral substitutional Ni to be stable for E F between 2.6 and 3.0 eV.…”

“…Potential optical centers for SPSs in diamond are the NV − center, the silicon-vacancy (SiV) center 9,10 , Ni-related centers 9,[11][12][13][14] and Cr-related centers 15,16 . The large phonon sideband of the NV − center spreads the emission over 100 nm resulting in a Debye-Waller factor of less than 5%, which is not ideal for quantum key distribution 8 .…”