Towards hybrid diamond optical devices

Abstract

Diamond is emerging as an optical supermaterial, due to its wide transparency bandwidth, excellent thermooptic properties and most notably its stable, large dipole moment, room temperature, single photon emitting colour centres. In this paper we present recent progress in the characterization of non radiative and radiative decay in single impurities and the fabrication of hybrid diamond-tellurite optical structures.. First, we present direct imaging of the emission pattern of individual ion implanted chromium-based single photon emitters in diamond and measure their quantum efficiency. By comparing the decay rates from the single chromium emitters at different depths in the diamond crystal, we measured an average quantum efficiency of 28%. Second, a hybrid approach involving a soft glass tellurite host material has been introduced, allowing nitrogen-vacancy (NV-) diamond emitters to be built into an optical fibre. The potential of integrating Cr-related centres in hybrid optical structures is also discussed.