Characterization of the angular-dependent emission of nitrogen-vacancy centers in nanodiamond
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Characterization of the angular‑dependent emission of nitrogen‑vacancy centers in nanodiamond Justus Christinck1,2 · Beatrice Rodiek1,2 · Marco López1 · Helmuth Hofer1 · Hristina Georgieva1 · Stefan Kück1,2 Received: 13 March 2020 / Accepted: 30 August 2020 / Published online: 18 September 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract We report on the characterization of the angular-dependent emission of single-photon emitters based on single nitrogenvacancy (NV-) centers in nanodiamond at room temperature. A theoretical model for the calculation of the angular emission patterns of such an NV-center at a dielectric interface will be presented. For the first time, the orientation of the NV-centers in nanodiamond was determined from back focal plane images of NV-centers and by comparison of the theoretical and experimental angular emission pattern. Furthermore, the orientation of the NV-centers was also obtained from measurements of the fluorescence intensity in dependence on the polarization angle of the linearly polarized excitation laser. The results of these measurements are in good agreement. Moreover, the collection efficiency in this setup was calculated to be higher than 80% using the model of the angular emission of the NV-centers.
1 Introduction Single-photon sources are promising candidates to be used in many quantum applications such as quantum key distribution and biomedical applications [1–5]. It is also discussed that single-photon sources may be able to become a new standard photon source in radiometry [6–9]. Here, the photon flux should be emitted, ideally, at one specific wavelength with a repetition rate higher than 106 photons per second, so that they can be detected with a low-noise analogue reference standard detector. Such a source can then be used to close the gap between traditional radiometry ( ≥ pW) and quantum radiometry ( ∼ fW). One candidate for the abovementioned applications is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV-) center in nanodiamond. The NV-center can be operated at room temperature, has a high photostability [2, 6, 10–12], exhibits a bright emission and the surrounding diamond crystal structure ensures robustness [13]. A single-photon source based on an NV-center in nanodiamond has already been absolutely calibrated, its absolute optical radiant flux and
* Justus Christinck [email protected] 1
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany
Laboratory for Emerging Nanometrology, Langer Kamp 6a/b, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
2
spectral power distribution are traced back to the national standards via an unbroken traceability chain [8, 9]. In this paper, we focus on the theoretical and experimental investigation of the angular-dependent emission of such an NV-center. This is considered to be the next step towards the realization of a deterministic absolute singlephoton source with respect to the possibility of calculation and therefore optimization of the collection efficiency of a single-photon source.
2 Experimental setup For the experiments, a
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