Atomistic mechanism of perfect alignment of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

作者：Miyazaki Takehide^*; Miyamoto Yoshiyuki; Makino Toshiharu; Kato Hiromitsu; Yamasaki Satoshi; Fukui Takahiro; Doi Yuki; Tokuda Norio; Hatano Mutsuko; Mizuochi Norikazu

来源：Applied Physics Letters, 2014, 105(26): 261601.

DOI：10.1063/1.4904988

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have attracted a great deal of attention because of their possible use in information processing and electromagnetic sensing technologies. We examined the atomistic generation mechanism for the NV defect aligned in the [111] direction of C(111) substrates. We found that N is incorporated in the C bilayers during the lateral growth arising from a sequence of kink propagation along the step edge down to [(1) over bar(1) over bar2]. As a result, the atomic configuration with the N-atom lone-pair pointing in the [111] direction is formed, which causes preferential alignment of NVs. Our model is consistent with recent experimental data for perfect NV alignment in C(111) substrates.

• 出版日期2014-12-29