The neutral silicon-vacancy center in diamond: spin polarization and lifetimes

2017/05/29 by B. L. Green, S. Mottishaw, B. G. Breeze +6 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #quant-ph #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.119.096402

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 096402 (2017)

arxiv created 2017/05/29 · arxiv updated 2017/09/06

Abstract

We demonstrate optical spin polarization of the neutrally-charged silicon-vacancy defect in diamond (\mathrmSiV⁰), an S=1 defect which emits with a zero-phonon line at 946 nm. The spin polarization is found to be most efficient under resonant excitation, but non-zero at below-resonant energies. We measure an ensemble spin coherence time T₂>100~μs at low-temperature, and a spin relaxation limit of T₁>25~s. Optical spin state initialization around 946 nm allows independent initialization of \mathrmSiV⁰ and \mathrmNV^- within the same optically-addressed volume, and \mathrmSiV⁰ emits within the telecoms downconversion band to 1550 nm: when combined with its high Debye-Waller factor, our initial results suggest that \mathrmSiV⁰ is a promising candidate for a long-range quantum communication technology.

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