Homequant-pharXiv:2605.29492

Near surface donor-acceptor pairs in hydrogenated homoepitaxial diamond nanolayers

quant-phphysics.optics2026-05v1license

Abstract

Hydrogen-terminated diamond is known for its p-type surface conductivity, which arises from a near-surface hole accumulation layer induced by adsorbed acceptor species. Here, we demonstrate that these surface acceptors also form optically active donor-acceptor pairs (DAP) with substitutional nitrogen donors in diamond. The insertion of a nominally undoped CVD interlayer between a nitrogen-rich HPHT substrate and a hydrogen-terminated surface enables the precise tuning of the donor-acceptor separation with nanometer precision. Radiative DAP recombination appears as bright, spectrally narrow lines whose intensity, energy, and decay dynamics depend systematically on interlayer thickness. Individual lines show single-photon statistics, while ensembles exhibit strong polarization anisotropy reflecting the planar donor-acceptor geometry. These findings reveal an optical counterpart of hydrogen-induced surface transfer doping in diamond and establish a surface-defined, nanometer-tunable platform for engineering DAP-based quantum emitters.

Comments: Main text: 17 pages, 5 figures Supplementary information: 1 page, 2 figures

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.29492,
  title  = {Near surface donor-acceptor pairs in hydrogenated homoepitaxial diamond nanolayers},
  author = {A. M. Romshin and A. P. Bolshakov and A. A. Zhivopistsev and A. V. Gritsienko and O. S. Kudryavtsev and P. A. Pivovarov and V. G. Ralchenko and I. I. Vlasov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.29492},
  year   = {2026}
}