Probing Metastable Space-Charge Potentials in a Wide Band Gap Semiconductor

Lozovoi, Artur; Jayakumar, Harishankar; Daw, Damon; Lakra, Ayesha; Meriles, Carlos A.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.125.256602

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…In particular, preliminary observations� not presented here for brevity�show that local optical excitation and externally applied electric fields can combine to produce a rich, though complex, phenomenology; this includes, e.g., the formation of bidirectional, jet-like patterns where SiV − formation seemingly emerges both from hole capture by SiV 2− in one-half of the plane and from electron capture by SiV 0 in the other. We defer the in-depth discussion of these and related results�including an examination of the role of space charge fields in the SiV − pattern formation 38 �to an upcoming study.…”

Section: T H Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Room-Temperature Photochromism of Silicon Vacancy Centers in CVD Diamond

et al. 2023

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The silicon vacancy (SiV) center in diamond is typically found in three stable charge states, SiV0, SiV–, and SiV2–, but studying the processes leading to their formation is challenging, especially at room temperature, due to their starkly different photoluminescence rates. Here, we use confocal fluorescence microscopy to activate and probe charge interconversion between all three charge states under ambient conditions. In particular, we witness the formation of SiV0 via the two-step capture of diffusing, photogenerated holes, a process we expose both through direct SiV0 fluorescence measurements at low temperatures and confocal microscopy observations in the presence of externally applied electric fields. In addition, we show that continuous red illumination induces the converse process, first transforming SiV0 into SiV– and then into SiV2–. Our results shed light on the charge dynamics of SiV and promise opportunities for nanoscale sensing and quantum information processing.

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Section: T H Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Room-Temperature Photochromism of Silicon Vacancy Centers in CVD Diamond

et al. 2023

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“…Prior work has shown that the presence of a constant (DC) electric field typically leads to the formation of metastable space charge potentials that can be locally comparable in strength to the external field (and thus can effectively shield it). In the current set of experiments, this results in the observation of distorted bleaching rates under the applied voltage, often dependent on the initialization protocol and measurement history.…”

Section: Photoactivated Charge Transport Between Individual Color Cen...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Detection and Modeling of Hole Capture by Single Point Defects under Variable Electric Fields

et al. 2023

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Understanding carrier trapping in solids has proven key to semiconductor technologies, but observations thus far have relied on ensembles of point defects, where the impact of neighboring traps or carrier screening is often important. Here, we investigate the capture of photogenerated holes by an individual negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond at room temperature. Using an externally gated potential to minimize space-charge effects, we find the capture probability under electric fields of variable sign and amplitude shows an asymmetric-bell-shaped response with maximum at zero voltage. To interpret these observations, we run semiclassical Monte Carlo simulations modeling carrier trapping through a cascade process of phonon emission and obtain electric-field-dependent capture probabilities in good agreement with experiment. Because the mechanisms at play are insensitive to the characteristics of the trap, we anticipate the capture cross sections we observe�largely exceeding those derived from ensemble measurements�may also be present in materials platforms other than diamond.

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“…Carrier recapture far from the injection site is typically marked by a drastic, long-lived change in the spin and photon emission properties of the trapping defect, meaning that, even in the absence of collecting electrodes, defect-assisted carrier generation and capture can serve as a practical tool, this time to shed light on the microscopic composition of the host crystal. Experiments articulating local laser excitation of NVs followed by nonlocal fluorescence imaging reveal the formation of well-defined charge state patterns, whose response as a function of the excitation laser duration, intensity, and wavelength reveals valuable information on the dynamics of carrier transport and capture (13)(14)(15), including the formation of space charge potentials (16). Most recently, these ideas were extended to the limiting case where the free carrier source and/or target trap are formed by individual point defects (17,18), a geometry that can potentially be exploited to establish a quantum bus between remote qubits (19).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%