Single defect centres in diamond: A review

Abstract The nitrogen vacancy and some nickel related defects in diamond can be observed as single quantum systems in diamond by their fluorescence. The fabrication of single colour centres occurs via generation of vacancies or via controlled nitrogen implantation in the case of the nitrogen vacancy (NV) centre. The NV centre shows an electron paramagnetic ground and optically excited state. As a result electron and nuclear magnetic resonance can be carried out on single defects. Due to the localized nature of the electron spin wavefunction hyperfine coupling to nuclei more than one lattice constant away from the defect as dominated by dipolar interaction. As a consequence the coupling to close nuclei leads to…