Dipartimento di Fisica

Descrizione del progetto

Diamond has attracted great interest in the quantum optics community due to its nitrogen vacancy (NV) center. The NV’s spin dependent fluorescence can be exploited for spin readout, exhibiting coherence times of 1 ms at room temperature. In addition, the energy levels of the ground state are sensitive to external fields. These properties make NVs attractive as a scalable platform for efficient nanoscale resolution sensing and for quantum information.

Diamond photonics is beneficial for optical magnetometry, due to the enhanced interaction and inherent stability provided by waveguides. Diamond is also compelling for microfluidics due to its outstanding biocompatibility, with sensing provided by NVs. However, the fabrication of diamond-based devices with accurately controlled spatial distribution of NVs remains an unmet challenge. The great promise of quantum diamond technologies, which could lead to exponentially faster computation power for solving highly multivariable problems and ultrasensitive nanoscale sensors, can be made possible using the smart nanofabrication system proposed within QuantDia. Using computer-interfaced femtosecond laser pulses, adaptive beam shaping, ion irradiation, realtime monitoring with confocal fluorescence microscopy and 3-axis motion stages, highly customized and high performance quantum technological 3D devices could be realized in diamond.

We propose a 3D rapid prototyping nanofabrication method based on focused femtosecond laser pulses with adaptive beam shaping to create optofluidic circuits and on-demand NVs.

Realtime monitoring during laser writing will ensure deterministic placement of optically active color centers, perfectly aligned with laser written optofluidic circuits. To complement the laser writing method, we will develop ion implantation methods to form NVs and microchannels within diamond. In addition, we will pursue a novel hybrid ion implantation followed by laser irradiation method to form high quality group IV color centers in diamond. Within QuantDia, the high-performance laser-written and ion irradiated building blocks will be integrated to produce novel quantum sensors including a microfluidic single-molecule detector and an ultrasensitive electric field detector using a dense distribution of NVs within a waveguide. The quantum sensors targeted in QuantDia harness the demonstrated strengths of NV based quantum sensing in fully integrated devices, opening the door for life scientists to apply cutting edge sensing technologies in a more usable package. In addition, the disruptive and customizable smart manufacturing technologies based on laser writing and ion irradiation developed within QuantDia are anticipated to find use in emerging quantum platforms beyond diamond including gallium nitride, silicon carbide and hexagonal boron nitride. 

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