Generation of Tin-Vacancy Centers in Diamond via Shallow Ion Implantation and Subsequent Diamond Overgrowth
Alison E. Rugar, Haiyu Lu, Constantin Dory, Shuo Sun, Patrick J. McQuade, Zhi‐Xun Shen, Nicholas A. Melosh, Jelena Vučković
Abstract
Group IV color centers in diamond have garnered great interest for their potential as optically active solid-state spin qubits. The future utilization of such emitters requires the development of precise site-controlled emitter generation techniques that are compatible with high-quality nanophotonic devices. This task is more challenging for color centers with large group IV impurity atoms, which are otherwise promising because of their predicted long spin coherence times without a dilution refrigerator. For example, when applied to the negatively charged tin-vacancy (SnV–) center, conventional site-controlled color center generation methods either damage the diamond surface or yield bulk spectra with unexplained features. Here we demonstrate a novel method to generate site-controlled SnV– centers with clean bulk spectra. We shallowly implant Sn ions through a thin implantation mask and subsequently grow a layer of diamond via chemical vapor deposition. This method can be extended to other color centers and integrated with quantum nanophotonic device fabrication.