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
