Wei Liu1,Arun Persaud1,Qing Ji1,Jacopo Simoni1,Vsevolod Ivanov1,Liang Tan1,Walid Redjem2,Boubacar Kante2,Andrew Bettiol3,Thomas Schenkel1
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory1,University of California Berkeley2,National University of Singapore3
Wei Liu1,Arun Persaud1,Qing Ji1,Jacopo Simoni1,Vsevolod Ivanov1,Liang Tan1,Walid Redjem2,Boubacar Kante2,Andrew Bettiol3,Thomas Schenkel1
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory1,University of California Berkeley2,National University of Singapore3
We report on studies of defect evolution and color center formation in diamonds and single crystalline silicon. In diamond we are developing a method to create self-aligned NV-centers along the tracks of a swift heavy ions (Au, 1 GeV). As we reported in [1], we found that NV centers are formed along the tracks of swift heavy where the formation is dominated by energy deposited by electronic stopping of the ions and do not correlate with the end-of-range of the ions where mostly vacancies are created. Here we will report on our experimental effort to extract single ion tracks in a lift out process and to characterize the NV centers along the track. Our earlier measurements indicate an average spacing of NV centers on the order of a few nanometers and chain length of tens or more NV centers. Chains with this spacing and length can become resources for quantum sensing applications and for studies of spin coupling. However, alignment and quality of the NV center arrays have to be investigated.<br/>Color centers with photon emission in the telecommunication bands promise to enable large-scale integration of quantum communication between local quantum computer nodes. Attractive candidates are color centers in silicon including the W-, G-, or T-centers. These might have long electron spin coherent times and narrow linewidths in 28Si enriched SOI-wafers, which we are exploring. Potential application of such color centers for quantum networks can leverage the established silicon-based manufacturing processes of integrated electronics and photonics platforms. We report on experimental measurements and theoretical calculations (density functional theory) of color centers formed in silicon with intense ion pulses that locally heat and simultaneously dope silicon samples.<br/><br/>The work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DEAC02-05CH11231. We acknowledge support through coordinated research project F11020 of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).<br/><br/>Refs:<br/><br/>1. R. E. Lake, A. Persaud, C. Christian, E. S. Barnard, E. M. Chan, A. A. Bettiol, M. Tomut, C. Trautmann, T. Schenkel, Direct formation of nitrogen-vacancy centers in nitrogen-doped diamond along the trajectories of swift heavy ions. Appl. Phys. Lett. 118, 084002 (2021).