Synthesis of luminescent europium defects in diamond

Abstract

Lanthanides are vital components in lighting, imaging technologies and future quantum memory applications owing to their narrow optical transitions and long spin coherence times. Recently, diamond has become a pre-eminent platform for the realisation of many experiments in quantum information science. Here we demonstrate a promising approach to incorporate Eu ions into diamond, providing a means to harness the exceptional characteristics of both lanthanides and diamond in a single material. Polyelectrolytes are used to electrostatically assemble Eu(III) chelate molecules on diamond and subsequently chemical vapour deposition is employed for the diamond growth. Fluorescence measurements show that the Eu atoms retain the characteristic optical signature of Eu(III) upon incorporation into the diamond lattice. Computational modelling supports the experimental findings, corroborating that Eu(III) in diamond is a stable configuration. The formed defects demonstrate the outstanding chemical control over the incorporation of impurities into diamond enabled by the electrostatic assembly together with chemical vapour deposition growth.

Diamond Nanophotonics

“…As such, we have witnessed the discovery of an additional defect with spin dependent fluorescence [88] , integration of lanthanides into diamond [89] and a revival of the silicon vacancy center. Furthermore, realization of electrically triggered single emitters [155,156] may pave the way to scalability and practical, optoelectronic diamond devices.…”

“…Very recently, the incorporation of europium into diamond has been demonstrated using an organic precursor molecule in the CVD process [89] . Rare earth elements provide very long lived spin ground states that are promising for the realization of quantum memories [90] .…”

Tin-Vacancy Quantum Emitters in Diamond

“…Incorporation of a heavier atom than those reported in previous studies [33] in diamond will become more important from the viewpoints of material science and quantum optics. The incorporation of large atoms such as Eu [34] and Xe [35] has been demonstrated so far. For the further development of the heavy atom-related color centers, it is essential to achieve high-quality quantum emitters by the adequate process for each atom, such as high temperature annealing under a high pressure as demonstrated in this study.…”

The Many Facets of Diamond Crystals

“…Recently, silicon-vacancy [33,34], germanium-vacancy [35][36][37], and tin-vacancy [38,39] centers have been demonstrated to possess characteristics that are promising for single-photon applications. In addition, attempts at creating optical centers related to other impurities in diamond, such as Ni [40], Cr [41], and Eu [42] have been reported. In this context, the contribution by Vladimir Nadolinny, Andrey Komarovskikh, and Yuri Palyanov provides a comprehensive review of point defects in diamond related to the incorporation of large impurity atoms into the diamond crystal lattice [43].…”