Ultrafast Spontaneous Emission from Silicon Vacancy Centers in Plasmonic-Coupled Diamond Membranes

Bright and fast single-photon sources are critical for realizing practical quantum information systems. Despite ongoing efforts, achieving these conditions via emitter-cavity engineering remains a challenge. Silicon vacancy (SiV) centers in diamond have emerged as promising candidates for quantum applications. However, further improvement in their lifetime and brightness is desired via integration with optical cavities. Here, we discuss our recent experiments on ultrafast spontaneous emission from SiV centers embedded in nanometer-thin diamond films [1] using the nanoparticles-on-film geometry [2] at two implantation depths. Cavity-coupled SiV centers display &lt;8 ps instrument limited lifetime, corresponding to a 135-fold Purcell enhancement, and a 19-fold brightness enhancement. Nanoparticles are printed onto thin film diamond, creating arrays of ultrasmall mode volume cavities. [3] This research paves the way for generating ultrafast and bright single photons for future diamond-based photonic quantum devices.<br/><br/>Reference<br/>1. Boyce, A. M.; Li, H.; Wilson, N. C.; Acil, D.; Shams-Ansari, A.; Chakravarthi, S.; Pederson, C.; Shen, Q.; Yama, N.; Fu, K. C.; Loncar, M.; Mikkelsen, M. H.. Nano Letters 24(12), 3575-3580 (2024).<br/>2. Baumberg, J. J.; Aizpurua, J.; Mikkelsen, M. H.; Smith, D. R.. Extreme Nanophotonics from Ultrathin Metallic Gaps. Nature Materials, 18 (7), 668–678 (2019).<br/>3. Shen, Q.; Shams-Ansari, A.; Boyce, A. M.; Wilson, N. C.; Cai, T.; Loncar, M.; Mikkelsen, M. H.. Nanophotonics, 10(1), 589–595 (2020).