We describe a technique for fabricating micro- and nano-structures incorporating fluorescent defects in diamond with a positional accuracy in the hundreds of nanometers. Using confocal fluorescence microscopy and focused ion beam (FIB) etching we first locate a suitable defect with respect to registration marks on the diamond surface and then etch a structure using these coordinates. We demonstrate the technique here by etching an 8 micron diameter hemisphere positioned such that a single negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy defect lies at its origin. This type of structure increases the photon collection efficiency by removing refraction and aberration losses at the diamond-air interface. We make a direct comparison of the fluorescence photon count rate before and after fabrication and observe an 8-fold increase due to the presence of the hemisphere.
@article{arxiv.1012.1135,
title = {Nano-fabricated solid immersion lenses registered to single emitters in diamond},
author = {L. Marseglia and J. P. Hadden and A. C. Stanley-Clarke and J. P. Harrison and B. Patton and Y. -L. D. Ho and B. Naydenov and F. Jelezko and J. Meijer and P. R. Dolan and J. M. Smith and J. G. Rarity and J. L. O'Brien},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1012.1135},
year = {2011}
}