Ultrabright Room-Temperature Sub-Nanosecond Emission from Single Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers Coupled to Nanopatch Antennas

Simeon I. Bogdanov, Mikhail Y. Shalaginov, Alexei S. Lagutchev, Chin Cheng Chiang, Deesha Shah, Alexandr S. Baburin, Ilya A. Ryzhikov, Ilya A. Rodionov, Alexander V. Kildishev, Alexandra Boltasseva, Vladimir M. Shalaev

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Solid-state quantum emitters are in high demand for emerging technologies such as advanced sensing and quantum information processing. Generally, these emitters are not sufficiently bright for practical applications, and a promising solution consists in coupling them to plasmonic nanostructures. Plasmonic nanostructures support broadband modes, making it possible to speed up the fluorescence emission in room-temperature emitters by several orders of magnitude. However, one has not yet achieved such a fluorescence lifetime shortening without a substantial loss in emission efficiency, largely because of strong absorption in metals and emitter bleaching. Here, we demonstrate ultrabright single-photon emission from photostable nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in nanodiamonds coupled to plasmonic nanocavities made of low-loss single-crystalline silver. We observe a 70-fold difference between the average fluorescence lifetimes and a 90-fold increase in the average detected saturated intensity. The nanocavity-coupled NVs produce up to 35 million photon counts per second, several times more than the previously reported rates from room-temperature quantum emitters.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4837-4844
Number of pages8
JournalNano letters
Volume18
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 8 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • epitaxial silver
  • nanodiamonds
  • nanopatch antennas
  • nitrogen-vacancy centers
  • Quantum plasmonics
  • single-photon source

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Bioengineering
  • General Chemistry
  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanical Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Ultrabright Room-Temperature Sub-Nanosecond Emission from Single Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers Coupled to Nanopatch Antennas'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this