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Observation and control of blinking nitrogen-vacancy centres in discrete nanodiamonds

Nature Nanotechnology volume 5, pages 345–349 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nitrogen-vacancy colour centres in diamond can undergo strong, spin-sensitive optical transitions under ambient conditions, which makes them attractive for applications in quantum optics1, nanoscale magnetometry2,3 and biolabelling4. Although nitrogen-vacancy centres have been observed in aggregated detonation nanodiamonds5 and milled nanodiamonds6, they have not been observed in very small isolated nanodiamonds7. Here, we report the first direct observation of nitrogen-vacancy centres in discrete 5-nm nanodiamonds at room temperature, including evidence for intermittency in the luminescence (blinking) from the nanodiamonds. We also show that it is possible to control this blinking by modifying the surface of the nanodiamonds.

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Figure 1: Characterization of discrete 5-nm diamonds on a glass coverslip.
Figure 2: Luminescence and magnetic resonance spectra from detonation nanodiamond.
Figure 3: Detailed analysis of blinking statistics from an NV centre in detonation nanodiamond.
Figure 4: Theoretical characterization of the structural and electronic disorder.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank N. Manson and F. Treussart for useful discussions, D. Birch for TEM measurements and E. Carter for Raman spectroscopy measurements. T.G. is funded by a Macquarie University Research Fellowship, C.B. is funded by a Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship, and J.R.R is funded by an ARC Future Fellowship. The work was funded in part by the Australian Research Council (DP0772286 and DP0771676).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Centre for Quantum Science and Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, New South Wales, Australia

    C. Bradac, T. Gaebel, N. Naidoo, J. Twamley & J. R. Rabeau

  2. Department of Physics, MQ Photonics Research Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, New South Wales, Australia

    C. Bradac, T. Gaebel, A. V. Zvyagin & J. R. Rabeau

  3. Laser Physics Centre, Research School of Physics and Engineering, Australian National University, Australian Capital Territory, 0200, Australia

    M. J. Sellars

  4. Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, New South Wales, Australia

    L. J. Brown

  5. Virtual Nanoscience Laboratory, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, Clayton, 3168, Victoria, Australia

    A. S. Barnard

  6. Department of Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    T. Plakhotnik

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  1. C. Bradac
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Contributions

C.B., T.G., A.V.Z. and J.R.R. conceived and designed the experiments, analysed the data, contributed materials/analysis tools and co-wrote the paper. T.P. analysed the data and contributed analysis tools. M.J.S. contributed ESR equipment and expertise. A.S.B. carried out DFTB simulations and analysed simulation data. N.N., J.T., L.B. and J.R.R. designed the deaggregation protocol. N.N. prepared the nanodiamond samples. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to A. V. Zvyagin or J. R. Rabeau.

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Bradac, C., Gaebel, T., Naidoo, N. et al. Observation and control of blinking nitrogen-vacancy centres in discrete nanodiamonds. Nature Nanotech 5, 345–349 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.56

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