Additive GaN solid immersion lenses for enhanced photon extraction efficiency from diamond color centers

Cheng, Xingrui and Wessling, Nils Kolja and Ghosh, Saptarsi and Kirkpatrick, Andrew R. and Kappers, Menno J. and Lekhai, Yashna N. D. and Morley, Gavin W. and Oliver, Rachel A. and Smith, Jason M. and Dawson, Martin D. and Salter, Patrick S. and Strain, Michael J. (2023) Additive GaN solid immersion lenses for enhanced photon extraction efficiency from diamond color centers. ACS Photonics, 10 (9). pp. 3374-3383. ISSN 2330-4022 (https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.3c00854)

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Abstract

Effective light extraction from optically active solid-state spin centers inside high-index semiconductor host crystals is an important factor in integrating these pseudo-atomic centers in wider quantum systems. Here, we report increased fluorescent light collection efficiency from laser-written nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in bulk diamond facilitated by micro-transfer printed GaN solid immersion lenses. Both laser-writing of NV centers and transfer printing of micro-lens structures are compatible with high spatial resolution, enabling deterministic fabrication routes toward future scalable systems development. The micro-lenses are integrated in a noninvasive manner, as they are added on top of the unstructured diamond surface and bonded by van der Waals forces. For emitters at 5 μm depth, we find approximately 2× improvement of fluorescent light collection using an air objective with a numerical aperture of NA = 0.95 in good agreement with simulations. Similarly, the solid immersion lenses strongly enhance light collection when using an objective with NA = 0.5, significantly improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the NV center emission while maintaining the NV’s quantum properties after integration.

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