17 research outputs found
Single Color Centers Implanted in Diamond Nanostructures
The development of materials processing techniques for optical diamond
nanostructures containing a single color center is an important problem in
quantum science and technology. In this work, we present the combination of ion
implantation and top-down diamond nanofabrication in two scenarios: diamond
nanopillars and diamond nanowires. The first device consists of a 'shallow'
implant (~20nm) to generate Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers near the top
surface of the diamond crystal. Individual NV centers are then isolated
mechanically by dry etching a regular array of nanopillars in the diamond
surface. Photon anti-bunching measurements indicate that a high yield (>10%) of
the devices contain a single NV center. The second device demonstrates 'deep'
(~1\mu m) implantation of individual NV centers into pre-fabricated diamond
nanowire. The high single photon flux of the nanowire geometry, combined with
the low background fluorescence of the ultrapure diamond, allows us to sustain
strong photon anti-bunching even at high pump powers.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure
Enhanced Single Photon Emission from a Diamond-Silver Aperture
We have developed a scalable method for coupling single color centers in
diamond to plasmonic resonators and demonstrated Purcell enhancement of the
single photon emission rate of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. Our structures
consist of single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center-containing diamond nanoposts
embedded in a thin silver film. We have utilized the strong plasmon resonances
in the diamond-silver apertures to enhance the spontaneous emission of the
enclosed dipole. The devices were realized by a combination of ion implantation
and top-down nanofabrication techniques, which have enabled deterministic
coupling between single NV centers and the plasmonic modes for multiple devices
in parallel. The plasmon-enhanced NV centers exhibited over six-fold
improvements in spontaneous emission rate in comparison to bare nanoposts and
up to a factor of 3.6 in radiative lifetime reduction over bulk samples, with
comparable increases in photon counts. The hybrid diamond-plasmon system
presented here could provide a stable platform for the implementation of
diamond-based quantum information processing and magnetometry schemes.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure
A Diamond Nanowire Single Photon Antenna
The development of a robust light source that emits one photon at a time is
an outstanding challenge in quantum science and technology. Here, at the
transition from many to single photon optical communication systems, fully
quantum mechanical effects may be utilized to achieve new capabilities, most
notably perfectly secure communication via quantum cryptography. Practical
implementations place stringent requirements on the device properties,
including stable photon generation, room temperature operation, and efficient
extraction of many photons. Single photon light emitting devices based on
fluorescent dye molecules, quantum dots, and carbon nanotube material systems
have all been explored, but none have simultaneously demonstrated all criteria.
Here, we describe the design, fabrication, and characterization of a bright
source of single photons consisting of an individual Nitrogen-vacancy color
center (NV center) in a diamond nanowire operating in ambient conditions. The
nanowire plays a positive role in increasing the number of single photons
collected from the NV center by an order of magnitude over devices based on
bulk diamond crystals, and allows operation at an order of magnitude lower
power levels. This result enables a new class of nanostructured diamond devices
for room temperature photonic and quantum information processing applications,
and will also impact fields as diverse as biological and chemical sensing,
opto-mechanics, and scanning-probe microscopy.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, v2: Includes improved reference list; modified
figure 1 to show a large array of NW and FDTD simulation of field profile;
direct experimental comparsion of several bulk/NW devices in figure
Cognitive effects of high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation: a systematic review
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was introduced as a non-invasive tool for the investigation of the motor cortex. The repetitive application (rTMS), causing longer lasting effects, was used to study the influence on a variety of cerebral functions. High-frequency (>1Â Hz) rTMS is known to depolarize neurons under the stimulating coil and to indirectly affect areas being connected and related to emotion and behavior. Researchers found selective cognitive improvement after high-frequency (HF) stimulation specifically over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). This article provides a systematic review of HF-rTMS studies (1999â2009) stimulating over the prefrontal cortex of patients suffering from psychiatric/neurological diseases or healthy volunteers, where the effects on cognitive functions were measured. The cognitive effect was analyzed with regard to the impact of clinical status (patients/healthy volunteers) and stimulation type (verum/sham). RTMS at 10, 15 or 20Â Hz, applied over the left DLPFC, within a range of 10â15 successive sessions and an individual motor threshold of 80â110%, is most likely to cause significant cognitive improvement. In comparison, patients tend to reach a greater improvement than healthy participants. Limitations concern the absence of healthy groups in clinical studies and partly the absence of sham groups. Thus, future investigations are needed to assess cognitive rTMS effects in different psychiatric disorders versus healthy subjects using an extended standardized neuropsychological test battery. Since the pathophysiological and neurobiological basis of cognitive improvement with rTMS remains unclear, additional studies including genetics, experimental neurophysiology and functional brain imaging are necessary to explore stimulation-related functional changes in the brain
Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences
The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & NemĂ©sio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; NemĂ©sio 2009aâb; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported
by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on
18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based
researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016
Readout and control of a single nuclear spin with a metastable electron spin ancilla
Electron and nuclear spins associated with point defects in insulators are promising systems for solid-state quantum technology. The electron spin is usually used for readout and addressing, and nuclear spins are used as exquisite quantum bits and memor