Hybrid group IV nanophotonic structures incorporating diamond silicon-vacancy color centers

We demonstrate a new approach for engineering group IV semiconductor-based quantum photonic structures containing negatively charged silicon-vacancy (SiV^-) color centers in diamond as quantum emitters. Hybrid diamond-SiC structures are realized by combining the growth of nano- and microdiamonds on silicon carbide (3C or 4H polytype) substrates, with the subsequent use of these diamond crystals as a hard mask for pattern transfer. SiV^- color centers are incorporated in diamond during its synthesis from molecular diamond seeds (diamondoids), with no need for ion-implantation or annealing. We show that the same growth technique can be used to grow a diamond layer controllably doped with SiV^- on top of a high purity bulk diamond, in which we subsequently fabricate nanopillar arrays containing high quality SiV^- centers. Scanning confocal photoluminescence measurements reveal optically active SiV^- lines both at room temperature and low temperature (5 K) from all fabricated structures, and, in particular, very narrow line widths and small inhomogeneous broadening of SiV^- lines from all-diamond nanopillar arrays, which is a critical requirement for quantum computation. At low temperatures (5 K) we observe in these structures the signature typical of SiV^- centers in bulk diamond, consistent with a double lambda. These results indicate that high quality color centers can be incorporated into nanophotonic structures synthetically with properties equivalent to those in bulk diamond, thereby opening opportunities for applications in classical and quantum information processing.