Efficient Fabrication of High‐Density Ensembles of Color Centers via Ion Implantation on a Hot Diamond Substrate

• Published in: Advanced Physics Research Vol. 3; no. 12
• Main Authors: Nieto Hernandez, E., Andrini, G., Crnjac, A., Brajkovic, M., Picariello, F., Corte, E., Pugliese, V., Matijević, M., Aprà, P., Varzi, V., Forneris, J., Genovese, M., Siketic, Z., Jaksic, M., Ditalia Tchernij, S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.12.2024; Wiley-VCH
• Subjects: Annealing; color center; Color centers; Crystal lattices; Density; diamond; Diamonds; Fabrication; Fluence; in situ annealing; Ion implantation; Ions; Magnesium; Nitrogen; NV centers; Radiation; Radiation damage; Spectrum analysis; Temperature
• ISSN: 2751-1200; 2751-1200
• DOI: 10.1002/apxr.202400067

Nitrogen‐vacancy (NV) centers in diamonds are one of the most promising systems for quantum technologies, including quantum metrology and sensing. A promising strategy for the achievement of high sensitivity to external fields relies on the exploitation of large ensembles of NV centers, whose fabrication by ion implantation is upper limited by the amount of radiation damage introduced in the diamond lattice. In this work an approach is demonstrated to increase the density of NV centers upon the high‐fluence implantation of MeV N2+ ions on a hot target substrate (>550 °C). The results show that with respect to room‐temperature implantation, the high‐temperature process increases the vacancy density threshold required for the irreversible conversion of diamond to a graphitic phase, thus enabling to achieve higher density ensembles. Furthermore, the formation efficiency of color centers is investigated on diamond substrates implanted at varying temperatures with MeV N2+ and Mg+ ions revealing that the formation efficiency of both NV centers and magnesium‐vacancy (MgV) centers increases with the implantation temperature. In this work we demonstrate an increase of the density of color centers upon the high‐fluence implantation of MeV N and Mg ions on a hot diamond substrate (>550 °C). Further the results show that, with respect to room‐temperature implantation, the high‐temperature process increases the vacancy density threshold required for the irreversible conversion of diamond to a graphitic phase.