Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Ultrafast electronic readout of diamond nitrogen–vacancy centres coupled to graphene

Nature Nanotechnology volume 10, pages 135–139 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Non-radiative transfer processes are often regarded as loss channels for an optical emitter1 because they are inherently difficult to access experimentally. Recently, it has been shown that emitters, such as fluorophores and nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond, can exhibit a strong non-radiative energy transfer to graphene2,3,4,5,6. So far, the energy of the transferred electronic excitations has been considered to be lost within the electron bath of the graphene. Here we demonstrate that the transferred excitations can be read out by detecting corresponding currents with a picosecond time resolution7,8. We detect electronically the spin of nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond and control the non-radiative transfer to graphene by electron spin resonance. Our results open the avenue for incorporating nitrogen-vacancy centres into ultrafast electronic circuits and for harvesting non-radiative transfer processes electronically.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Non-radiative readout scheme.
Figure 2: Ultrafast electronic readout of NV centres.
Figure 3: Electronically and optically detected ESR.
Figure 4: Timescales of the non-radiative readout of NV centres.

References

  1. Ford, G. W. & Weber, W. H. Electromagnetic interactions of molecules with metal surfaces. Phys. Rep. 113, 195–287 (1984).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Gómez-Santos, G. & Stauber, T. Fluorescence quenching in graphene: a fundamental ruler and evidence for transverse plasmons. Phys. Rev. B 84, 165438 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Gaudreau, L. et al. Universal distance-scaling of nonradiative energy transfer to graphene. Nano Lett. 13, 2030–2035 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Swathi, R. S. & Sebastian, K. L. Long range resonance energy transfer from a dye molecule to graphene has (distance)−4 dependence. J. Chem. Phys. 130, 86101 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Velizhanin, K. A. & Shahbazyan, T. V. Long-range plasmon-assisted energy transfer over doped graphene. Phys. Rev. B 86, 245432 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Koppens, F. H. L., Chang, D. E. & García de Abajo, J. F. Graphene plasmonics: a platform for strong light–matter interactions. Nano Lett. 11, 3370–3377 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Auston, D. H. Impulse response of photoconductors in transmission lines. IEEE J. Quant. Electron. 19, 639–648 (1983).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Prechtel, L. et al. Time-resolved ultrafast photocurrents and terahertz generation in freely suspended graphene. Nature Commun. 3, 646 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Bonaccorso, F., Sun, Z., Hasan, T. & Ferrari, A. C. Graphene photonics and optoelectronics. Nature Photon. 4, 611–622 (2010).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Xia, F., Mueller, T., Lin, Y-M., Valdes-Garcia, A. & Avouris, P. Ultrafast graphene photodetector. Nature Nanotech. 4, 839–843 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Xu, X. et al. Photo-thermoelectric effect at a graphene interface junction. Nano Lett. 10, 562–566 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Gabor, N. M. et al. Hot carrier-assisted intrinsic photoresponse in graphene. Science 334, 648–652 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Song, J. C. W., Rudner, M. S., Marcus, C. M. & Levitov, L. S. Hot carrier transport and photocurrent response in graphene. Nano Lett. 11, 4688–4692 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Sundaram, R. S. et al. The graphene–gold interface and its implications for nanoelectronics. Nano Lett. 11, 3833–3837 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Sun, D. et al. Ultrafast hot-carrier-dominated photocurrent in graphene. Nature Nanotech. 7, 114–118 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Chen, Z., Berciaud, S., Nuckolls, C., Heinz, T. F. & Brus, L. E. Energy transfer from individual semiconductor nanocrystals to graphene. ACS Nano 4, 2964–2968 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Tisler, J. et al. Single defect center scanning near-field optical microscopy on graphene. Nano Lett. 13, 3152–3156 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Liu, X. et al. Energy transfer from a single nitrogen-vacancy center in nanodiamond to a graphene monolayer. Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 233112 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Jelezko, F., Gaebel, T., Popa, I., Gruber, A. & Wrachtrup, J. Observation of coherent oscillations in a single electron spin. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 76401 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Dutt, M. V. G. et al. Quantum register based on individual electronic and nuclear spin qubits in diamond. Science 316, 1312–1316 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Neumann, P. et al. Multipartite entanglement among single spins in diamond. Science 320, 1326–1329 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Fuchs, G. D., Burkard, G., Klimov, P. V. & Awschalom, D. D. A quantum memory intrinsic to single nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond. Nature Phys. 7, 789–793 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Pfaff, W. et al. Demonstration of entanglement-by-measurement of solid-state qubits. Nature Phys. 9, 29–33 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Bernien, H. et al. Heralded entanglement between solid-state qubits separated by three metres. Nature 497, 86–90 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Togan, E. et al. Quantum entanglement between an optical photon and a solid-state spin qubit. Nature 466, 730–734 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Kurtsiefer, C., Mayer, S., Zarda, P. & Weinfurter, H. Stable solid-state source of single photons. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 290–293 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Balasubramanian, G. et al. Nanoscale imaging magnetometry with diamond spins under ambient conditions. Nature 455, 648–651 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Maze, J. R. et al. Nanoscale magnetic sensing with an individual electronic spin in diamond. Nature 455, 644–647 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Acosta, V. M. et al. Temperature dependence of the nitrogen-vacancy magnetic resonance in diamond. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 70801 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Plakhotnik, T. & Gruber, D. Luminescence of nitrogen-vacancy centers in nanodiamonds at temperatures between 300 and 700 K: perspectives on nanothermometry. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 12, 9751–9756 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Toyli, D. M., de las Casas, C. F., Christle, D. J., Dobrovitski, V. V. & Awschalom, D. D. Fluorescence thermometry enhanced by the quantum coherence of single spins in diamond. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 8417–8421 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Gruber, A. Scanning confocal optical microscopy and magnetic resonance on single defect centers. Science 276, 2012–2014 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  33. Freitag, M., Low, T., Xia, F. & Avouris, P. Photoconductivity of biased graphene. Nature Photon. 7, 53–59 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Lemme, M. C. et al. Gate-activated photoresponse in a graphene p–n junction. Nano Lett. 11, 4134–4137 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Auston, D. H., Johnson, A. M., Smith, P. R. & Bean, J. C. Picosecond optoelectronic detection, sampling, and correlation measurements in amorphous semiconductors. Appl. Phys. Lett. 37, 371 (1980).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank A. Reserbat-Plantey for technical support. This work was supported by a European Research Council (ERC) Grant NanoREAL (No. 306754), the ‘Center of NanoScience’ in Munich and the DFG via SFB 631. L.G. acknowledges financial support from the Marie-Curie International Fellowship COFUND and ICFOnest program. F.H.L.K. acknowledges support from the Fundacio Cellex Barcelona, the ERC Career integration grant 294056 (GRANOP) and the ERC starting grant 307806 (CarbonLight).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Walter Schottky Institut and Physik-Department, Technische Universität München, Am Coulombwall 4a, Garching, 85748, Germany

    Andreas Brenneis, Max Seifert, Martin S. Brandt, Jose A. Garrido & Alexander W. Holleitner

  2. Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM), Schellingstr. 4, Munich, 80799, Germany

    Andreas Brenneis, Hans Huebl, Jose A. Garrido & Alexander W. Holleitner

  3. ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, Mediterranean Technology Park, Castelldefels, 08860, Barcelona, Spain

    Louis Gaudreau & Frank H. L. Koppens

  4. Institute of Physics, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, 86135, Germany

    Helmut Karl

  5. Walther-Meißner-Institut, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Garching, 85748, Germany

    Hans Huebl

Authors
  1. Andreas Brenneis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Louis Gaudreau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Max Seifert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Helmut Karl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Martin S. Brandt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Hans Huebl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Jose A. Garrido
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Frank H. L. Koppens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Alexander W. Holleitner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

A.B. and L.G. performed the experiments and analysed the data together with A.W.H., F.H.L.K., M.S., J.A.G., M.S.B., H.H., and H.K., and F.H.L.K. and A.W.H. conceived the study. All authors co-wrote the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Frank H. L. Koppens or Alexander W. Holleitner.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (PDF 1290 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Brenneis, A., Gaudreau, L., Seifert, M. et al. Ultrafast electronic readout of diamond nitrogen–vacancy centres coupled to graphene. Nature Nanotech 10, 135–139 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.276

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.276

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Find nanotechnology articles, nanomaterial data and patents all in one place. Visit Nano by Nature Research