Abstract
Photoluminescent defects in diamond, such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center, are at the forefront of emerging optical quantum technologies. Most emit in the visible and near-infrared spectral region below 1000 nm (NIR-I), limiting their applications in photonics, fiber communications, and biology. Here, we show that the nitrogen-vacancy-nitrogen (N2V) center, which emits in the visible and near-infrared-II (NIR-II, 1000-1700 nm), is ubiquitous in as-synthesized and processed nitrogen-doped diamond, ranging from bulk samples to nanoparticles. We demonstrate that N2V is also present in commercially available state-of-the-art NV diamond sensing chips made via chemical vapor deposition (CVD). In high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) diamonds, the photoluminescence (PL) intensity of both N2V charge states, N2V0 in the visible and N2V- in the NIR-II, increases with increasing substitutional nitrogen concentration. We determine the PL lifetime of N2V- to be 0.3 ns and compare a quantum optical and density functional theory model of the N2V- with experimental PL spectra. Finally, we show that detonation nanodiamonds (DND) exhibit stable PL in the NIR-II, which we attribute to the N2V color center, and use this NIR-II PL to image DNDs inside skin cells. Our results contribute to the scientific and technological exploration and development of the N2V color center and help elucidate interactions with other color centers in diamond.
Recommended Citation
B. C. Johnson and M. O. de Vries and A. J. Healey and M. Capelli and A. Manian and G. Thalassinos and A. N. Abraham and H. Hapuarachchi and T. Luo and V. N. Mochalin and J. Jeske and J. H. Cole and S. Russo, "The Nitrogen-Vacancy-Nitrogen Color Center: A Ubiquitous Visible And Near-Infrared-II Quantum Emitter In Nitrogen-Doped Diamond," ACS Nano, vol. 19, no. 20, pp. 19046 - 19056, American Chemical Society, May 2025.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c18283
Department(s)
Chemistry
Keywords and Phrases
bioimaging; color centers; detonation nanodiamond; diamond; near-infrared; photoluminescence
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
1936-086X; 1936-0851
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2025 American Chemical Society, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
27 May 2025
PubMed ID
40366900
Comments
National Computational Infrastructure, Grant DE200100279