Creating diamond color centers for quantum optical applications

Abstract

Nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have distinct promise as solid-state qubits. This is because of their large dipole moment, convenient level structure and very long room-temperature coherence times. In general, a combination of ion irradiation and subsequent annealing is used to create the centers, however for the rigorous demands of quantum computing all processes need to be optimized, and decoherence due to the residual damage caused by the implantation process itself must be mitigated. To that end we have studied photoluminescence (PL) from NV-, NV0 and GR1 centers formed by ion implantation of 2 MeV He ions over a wide range of fluences. The sample was annealed at 600 °C to minim..