Nanoengineered Diamond Waveguide as a Robust Bright Platform for Nanomagnetometry Using Shallow Nitrogen Vacancy Centers

Photonic structures in diamond are key to most of its application in quantum technology. Here, we demonstrate tapered nanowaveguides structured directly onto the diamond substrate hosting shallow-implanted nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers. By optimization based on simulations and precise experimental control of the geometry of these pillar-shaped nanowaveguides, we achieve a net photon flux up to ∼1.7 × 10⁶ s^–1. This presents the brightest monolithic bulk diamond structure based on single NV centers so far. We observe no impact on excited state lifetime and electronic spin dephasing time (<i>T</i>₂) due to the nanofabrication process. Possessing such high brightness with low background in addition to preserved spin quality, this geometry can improve the current nanomagnetometry sensitivity ∼5 times. In addition, it facilitates a wide range of diamond defects-based magnetometry applications. As a demonstration, we measure the temperature dependency of <i>T</i>₁ relaxation time of a single shallow NV center electronic spin. We observe the two-phonon Raman process to be negligible in comparison to the dominant two-phonon Orbach process

Toward Optimized Surface δ‑Profiles of Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers Activated by Helium Irradiation in Diamond

The negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has been shown recently as an excellent sensor for external spins. Nevertheless, their optimum engineering in the near-surface region still requires quantitative knowledge in regard to their activation by vacancy capture during thermal annealing. To this aim, we report on the depth profiles of near-surface helium-induced NV centers (and related helium defects) by step-etching with nanometer resolution. This provides insights into the efficiency of vacancy diffusion and recombination paths concurrent to the formation of NV centers. It was found that the range of efficient formation of NV centers is limited only to approximately 10 to 15 nm (radius) around the initial ion track of irradiating helium atoms. Using this information we demonstrate the fabrication of nanometric-thin (δ) profiles of NV centers for sensing external spins at the diamond surface based on a three-step approach, which comprises (i) nitrogen-doped epitaxial CVD diamond overgrowth, (ii) activation of NV centers by low-energy helium irradiation and thermal annealing, and (iii) controlled layer thinning by low-damage plasma etching. Spin coherence times (Hahn echo) ranging up to 50 μs are demonstrated at depths of less than 5 nm in material with 1.1% of ¹³C (depth estimated by spin relaxation (T₁) measurements). At the end, the limits of the helium irradiation technique at high ion fluences are also experimentally investigated