Visible color-center laser in diamond

Abstract

Laser action at 530 nm using H3 centers in diamond was observed with an efficiency of 13.5% at room temperature. Optical double-resonance experiments on N3 centers provided direct evidence for a 2 A metastable level. Its presence results in rapid decay of the excited 2 E state and low quantum efficiency as well as significant excited-state absorption in the N3 luminescence region.Since the pioneering spectroscopy on FA (II) centers in KCl by Fritz et al. ,1 which led to construction of the first color-center laser by Fritz and Menke, 2 many efficient, widely tunable sources of coherent radiation based on defect structures in alkali halides have been developed. 3These ionic crystals have hitherto required cooling to cryogenic temperatures, however, both to prolong the shelf-life of laser-active centers and to achieve high quantum efficiency. While stable, tunable laser operation and Q switching using F-aggregate centers in LiF at room temperature have been achieved recently with special techniques, 4 in the work reported in this Letter we have followed a different approach to secure hightemperature operation. We have investigated substitutional impurities in a covalent crystal and have obtained efficient, visible laser action using H3 centers in diamond at room temperature. Diamonds contain a variety of color centers owing to the presence of impurity atom and vacancy complexes.

STED imaging of green fluorescent nanodiamonds containing nitrogen-vacancy-nitrogen centers

“…The stimulated emission properties of NVN centers has been studied previously in macroscopic crystals for the production of a color center laser in diamonds. Laser action at 530 nm has been observed, confirming the potential use of NVN color center with stimulated emission [15]. However, as we described in the lifetime measurement, in nanocrystals smaller than the excitation wavelength, the emission properties can be modified.…”

“…2(a), we obtained a mean value of τ = 27 ns and a full width half maximum (FWHM) of 10.1 ns. The lifetime value is significantly larger than in the bulk one (16 ns) [15] and is also larger than the red fluorescent nanodiamonds (rNDs) [3]. The large dispersion has already been observed with rNDs.…”

Distribution, Diffusion and Concentration of Defects in Colloidal Diamond

“…As shown in Figure 1.7 (right), the probability of an N3 centre is lower than N-V (Figure 1.5, right), which is consistent with experimental observations in bulk diamond. 18 In each of the cases described above, the N-V centre is assumed to be mobile, and interacting with a (presumably stationary) nitrogen impurity or complex. However, as the diffusion barrier for a GR1 defect is lower than that of an N-V centre, it is also possible that a vacancy may combine with an N-V, and a V-N-V defect may be formed.…”

“…The N3 centre consists of three nitrogen atoms surrounding a vacancy (whereas a vacancy completely surrounded by four N atoms is known as a B-centre). Both the H3 and N3 provide photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence, are known to be thermally stable, and exhibit high quantum efficiency up to temperatures in excess of 500 K. 18 A summary of the point group symmetry, zero phonon line (ZPL), central wavelength (l 0 ) and photoacoustic imaging quantum yield for the GR1, N-V, H3 and N3 defects is provided in Table 1.1, where we can see that the quantum yield for each of these defects is quite different. The quantum yield is defined as the number of photons emitted via photoluminescence versus the number of photons absorbed during excitation.…”

Quantum Information Processing with Diamond

“…The ongoing interest in detailed characterization of colour centres is manly inspired by possible applications in present and future optoelectronic devices (Vavilov, 1994) (GaN based materials are a good example here). Applications of colour clusters for fabrication of laser media is also under discussion (Rand and Deshazer, 1985). If we extend the notion of colour centres to rate earth ions in dielectrics, it is worth mentioning that optical data communication has taken great benefit from colour centres based optical amplifiers.…”