A nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center is a flaw in the crystal structure of diamond in which a nitrogen atom takes the place of a carbon atom in the diamond lattice and leaves a nearby site empty. Due to their quantum properties, such as single-photon emission at room temperature and a long coherence time, this defect and others in diamond that are fluorescent and are referred to as color centers have caught the attention of researchers. Their numerous applications incorporate quantum data encoding and handling and cell stamping in natural examinations.
Nanodiamonds with color centers have been embedded in custom-designed structures as a means of integrating these quantum emitters into photonic devices. Diamond microfabrication is technically challenging. An approach to this has been developed through research that was carried out at the So Carlos Institute of Physics (IFSC-USP) at the University of So Paulo in Brazil, and it is the subject of an article that has been published in the journal Nanomaterials.
Cleber Mendonça, a professor at IFSC-USP and the article’s final author, told Agência FAPESP, “We demonstrated a method of embedding fluorescent nanodiamonds in microstructures designed for this purpose, using two-photon polymerization [2PP].” We concentrated on the best convergence of nanodiamond in the photoresist to accomplish structures with somewhere around one fluorescent NV place and great underlying and optical quality.” The photoresist is a light-delicate material utilized in the creation cycle to move nanoscale examples to the substrate.
Mendonça and his group have utilized 2PP to manufacture three-layered microstructures. Basically, 2PP is an immediate laser composition strategy in which an extreme-focus laser pillar is shone on a light-delicate polymer gum that has not yet set to create the microstructure of interest.
In the review, a nanodiamond arrangement in deionized water was added to the combination of monomers that contained the photoresist, and after every one of the imperative physicochemical strategies had been finished, microfabrication was performed by presenting the example to beats from a strong titanium-sapphire laser constrained by committed programming to characterize the specific directions of the pillar.
“Absorbance measurements assessed scattering losses at higher concentrations, while fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy measurements confirmed the presence and location of the nanodiamonds.” According to the article’s authors, “our results show the feasibility of fabricating microstructures embedded within fluorescent nanodiamonds via 2PP for photonics and quantum technology applications.”
The review was essential for the Ph.D. exploration of the first creator, Filipe Assis Couto, with Mendonça as a postulation guide.
More information: Filipe A. Couto et al, Integrating Fluorescent Nanodiamonds into Polymeric Microstructures Fabricated by Two-Photon Polymerization, Nanomaterials (2023). DOI: 10.3390/nano13182571
