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内容記述 |
Electron irradiation is one of the most powerful methods to create negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centers (NV-s) in diamonds, which act as qubits and quantum sensors even at room temperature (RT). For quantum sensing, it is important to create ensemble NV-s with long coherence time (T2) since the sensitivity can be affected by both amount of NV- and T2. For high concentration NV-, electron irradiation with higher fluence is needed. However, if electron fluence is too high, neutral NVs (NV0s) are created because of lack of N donors. For T2, since residual defects act as origins of T2 decoherence, it is important to optimize the condition of subsequent annealing as well as irradiation fluence. Thus, we need to consider initial nitrogen (P1) concentration in diamond, electron fluence, and annealing conditions. In this paper, we create NV-s in Ib diamonds by electron irradiation and subsequent annealing with different conditions, and study the amounts of NV-s and their T2 for high-sensitive quantum sensing. The samples used in this study were Ib diamond with P1 concentration around 100 ppm. Those samples were irradiated with 2 MeV-electrons at a fluence of 1x1018/cm2 at RT. After irradiation, the samples were annealed between 600 and 1400oC in Ar. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements were carried out at RT to confirm NV creation. For PL measurements, the laser with a wavelength of 532 nm was used as excitation. PL intensity for samples annealed at 600 oC is about half even after annealing for 600 min, comparing with that for 800 oC-annealed samples although the values increase with increasing annealing time. Thus, the annealing at 650 oC is not enough to create NV. The samples annealed between 800 and 1200 oC show the highest PL intensity even after annealing for 10 min. The 800 and 1000 oC-annealed samples keep the PL intensity after annealing for 1200 min although the PL intensity for 1200 oC-annealed samples decrease with increasing annealing time above 100 min. The PL intensity for the samples annealed at 1400 oC shows smaller value and decreases with increasing annealing time. For T2, the samples annealed at 1400 oC show 2 microsec after annealing for 10 min. However, NV- cannot be observed after annealing at 1400 oC for 30min. Therefore, it can be concluded that annealing at 1400 oC is not suitable for the creation of NV-. For samples annealed between 600 and 1000 oC, the values of T2 are constant (between 0.5 and 0.9 microsec) after annealing up to 1200 min. For samples annealed at 1200 oC, no significant difference in T2 value is observed from those annealed between 600 and 1000 oC up to 30min, and the value increases with increasing annealing time above 30 min. From the point of view of sensing, it is important to consider both the amounts of NV- centers and T2. Therefore, we compare the values of PL intensity times T2. As a result, the samples annealed between 800 and 1200 oC show the highest value although the value for samples annealed at 1200 oC decreases after annealing for 1200 min. This suggests that annealing at 800 oC for 10 min is enough to create NV-s. We also study the creation of NV-s in diamonds by electron irradiation at elevated temperature. The samples with P1 concentration around 60 and 100 ppm were irradiated with 2 MeV-electrons at fluences up to 5x1018/cm2 at 800 or 1000 oC. The samples were annealed at 1000 oC for 120 min after irradiation. The amounts of NV are estimated from electron spin resonance (ESR) signals. As a result, samples irradiated at 800 and 1000 oC show higher NV- concentration than that for RT-irradiated ones, and 800 oC-irradiated ones show higher NV concentration than 1000oC-irradiated ones. Since the T2 values are not affected by irradiation temperature, the elevated temperature irradiation, especially 800 oC irradiation is a useful method to realize quantum sensing with high sensitivity. |
