We investigate the effects of a novel approach to diamond nanofabrication and nitrogen vacancy (NV) center formation on the optical linewidth of the NV zero-phonon line (ZPL). In this post-implantation method, nitrogen is implanted after all fabrication processes have been completed. We examine three post-implanted samples, one implanted with 14N and two with 15N isotopes. We perform photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectroscopy to assess optical linewidths and optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) measurements to isotopically classify the NV centers. From this, we find that NV centers formed from nitrogen naturally occuring in the diamond lattice are characterized by a linewidth distribution peaked at an optical linewidth nearly two orders of magnitude smaller than the distribution characterizing most of the NV centers formed from implanted nitrogen. Surprisingly, we also observe a number of 15NV centers with narrow (<500MHz) linewidths, implying that implanted nitrogen can yield NV centers with narrow optical linewidths. We further use a Bayesian approach to statistically model the linewidth distributions, to accurately quantify the uncertainty of fit parameters in our model, and to predict future linewidths within a particular sample. Our model is designed to aid comparisons between samples and research groups, in order to determine the best methods of achieving narrow NV linewidths in structured samples.
@article{arxiv.2005.03666,
title = {Statistically Modeling Optical Linewidths of Nitrogen Vacancy Centers in Post-Implanted Nanostructures},
author = {Mark Kasperczyk and Josh A. Zuber and Arne Barfuss and Johannes Kölbl and Viktoria Yurgens and Sigurd Flågan and Tomasz Jakubczyk and Brendan Shields and Richard J. Warburton and Patrick Maletinsky},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.03666},
year = {2020}
}