Phys.org  April 28, 2021
An international team of researchers (USA – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Finland, Singapore, Germany) has measured depth-resolved photoluminescence of nitrogen-vacancy (NV−) centers formed along the tracks of swift heavy ions (SHIs) in synthetic single crystal diamonds that had been doped with nitrogen during crystal growth. Analysis of the spectra showed that NV− centers are formed preferentially within regions where electronic stopping processes dominate and not at the end of the ion range where elastic collisions lead to the formation of vacancies and defects. Thermal annealing further increased NV yields after irradiation with SHIs preferentially in regions with high vacancy densities. NV centers formed along the tracks of single swift heavy ions could be isolated with lift-out techniques for explorations of color center qubits in quasi-1D registers with an average qubit spacing of a few nanometers and of order 100 color centers per micrometer along 10 to 30-μm-long percolation chains…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
…The honeycomb pattern in the photo shows the difference between areas exposed to the beam (darker) and masked-off areas… Credit: Susan Brand/Berkeley Lab