Diamond-based single-photon emitters

By Igor Aharonovich, Stefania Castelletto, D. Simpson, C. Su, A. Greentree, Steven Prawer. 2011

608 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The exploitation of emerging quantum technologies requires efficient fabrication of key building blocks. Sources of single photons are extremely important across many applications as they can serve as vectors for quantum information—thereby allowing long-range (perhaps even global-scale) quantum states to be made and manipulated for tasks such as quantum communication or distributed quantum computation. At the single-emitter level, quantum sources also afford new possibilities in terms of nanoscopy and bio-marking. Color centers in diamond are prominent candidates to generate and manipulate quantum states of light, as they are a photostable solid-state source of single photons at room temperature. In this review, we discuss the state of the art of diamond-based single-photon emitters and highlight their fabrication methodologies. We present the experimental techniques used to characterize the quantum emitters and discuss their photophysical properties. We outline a number of applications including quantum key distribution, bio-marking and sub-diffraction imaging, where diamond-based single emitters are playing a crucial role. We conclude with a discussion of the main challenges and perspectives for employing diamond emitters in quantum information processing.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Biomedical Engineering, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/544b4da85d4cdf332025a4c8232f6541414a6e39

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Biomedical Engineering

In Materials Chemistry

Citations in the corpus

Quantum metrology and its application in biology (2014, background): “Microwave fields can then be used to coherently drive transitions between the ms = 0 and ms = ±1 ground states; while significant differences between the fluorescence from the ms = 0 and ms = ±1 levels allows accurate read-out of the NV spin state [218].”
Narrow-linewidth homogeneous optical emitters in diamond nanostructures via silicon ion implantation (2015, background): “These two criteria of a low inhomogeneous distribution relative to the single-emitter linewidth and narrow single-emitter linewidth relative to the lifetime limit are essential for quantum optics applications[1, 25].”
Tunable room-temperature single-photon emission at telecom wavelengths from sp3 defects in carbon nanotubes (2017, background): “[1] Aharonovich, I.”
Electron–phonon processes of the silicon-vacancy centre in diamond (2014, background): “Among many colour centres in diamond [5, 6], the negatively charged silicon-vacancy (SiV−) centre stands out due to its desirable optical properties.”
Diamond optomechanical crystals (2015, background): “Diamonds are rich in optically active defects (color centers), such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) and silicon-vacancy (SiV) center, which behave as atom-like systems in the solid state [26,27].”