Nitrogen-Terminated Diamond (111) Surface for Room-Temperature Quantum Sensing and Simulation.

Chou, Jyh-Pin; Retzker, Alex; Gali, Adam · Nano Lett · 2017

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has shown great promise of nanoscale sensing applications, however, near-surface NV suffer from relatively short spin coherence time that limits its sensitivity. This is presumably caused by improper surface termination. Using first-principles calculations, we propose that nitrogen-terminated (111) diamond provides electrical inactivity and surface spin noise free properties. We anticipate that the nitrogen-terminated (111) surface can be fabricated by nitrogen plasma treatment. Our findings pave the way toward an improved NV-based quantum sensing and quantum simulation operating at room temperature.