Engineering shallow spins in diamond with nitrogen delta-doping

ORAL

Abstract

The excellent spin properties of diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers motivate applications from sensing to quantum information processing. Still, external electron and nuclear spin sensing are limited by weak magnetic dipole interactions, requiring NVs be within a few nm of the surface and retain long spin coherence times ($T_2$). We report a nitrogen delta-doping technique to create artificial NVs meeting these requirements. Isotopically pure $^{15}$N$_2$ gas is introduced to form a thin N-doped layer (1--2 nm thick) during chemical vapor deposition of a diamond film. Post growth electron irradiation creates vacancies and subsequent annealing forms NVs while mitigating crystal damage. We identified doped NVs through the hyperfine signature of the rare $^{15}$N isotope in electron spin resonance measurements. We confirm the doped NV depth dispersion is less than 4 nm by doping NVs in the $^{12}$C layer of an isotopically engineered $^{13}$C/$^{12}$C/$^{13}$C structure and probing the coupling between the doped NVs and the $^{13}$C nuclear spins. Furthermore, despite their surface proximity, doped NVs embedded in $^{12}$C films 5 (52) nm below the surface show $T_2$ greater than 100 (600) $\mu$s [1].\\[4pt] [1] K. Ohno \emph{et al.}, Appl. Phys. Lett. \textbf{101}, 082413 (2012).

*This work was supported by AFSOR and DARPA.

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Authors

  • K. Ohno

    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106

  • F.J. Heremans

    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106

  • L.C. Bassett

    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106

  • Bryan Myers

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
    • University of California Santa Barbara
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106

  • David M. Toyli

    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Ania Jayich

    • University of California Santa Barbara
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106

  • Chris Palmstr\O m

    • Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Materials Science; University of California, Santa Barbara
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106
    • University of California, Santa Barbara

  • D.D. Awschalom

    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, Univ. of California Santa Barbara
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
    • Department of Physics and California Nanosystems Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara
    • University of California Santa Barbara
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106
    • Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara