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This study investigates saturable absorption in defect-rich diamond nanophotonic cavities, offering critical insights into managing optical losses caused by crystal defects like nitrogen-vacancy centers. By characterizing intensity-dependent loss mechanisms across a broad wavelength range, the research provides actionable strategies for harnessing these nonlinearities to improve future quantum photonic devices and sensors.
Saturable absorption in defect-rich diamond nanophotonics
arXiv:2603.11367v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Diamond is a leading quantum photonics platform due to its ability to host qubits based on crystal defects such as nitrogen-vacancy centres. Fabricating nanophotonic devices from defect-rich diamond, which underpins many quantum sensing technologies, promises enhanced performance and integrability of diamond quantum sensors. Here we demonstrate microdisk cavities fabricated from defect-rich diamond that support optical modes with high quality factor (${Q}\sim7\times10^4$ at $1042\,$nm) and show that they exhibit saturable absorption. Power-dependent spectroscopy measurements spanning 979$\,$nm to 1604$\,$nm are used to observe intensity-dependent cavity loss and extract wavelength-dependent absorption coefficients and saturation intensities. At 1047$\,$nm, we observe saturation and measure a saturation intensity of $2.1\,(8)\,$MW/cm$^2$ and an absorption coefficient of $0.53\,(2)\,$cm$^{-1}$. These results provide insight into defect-mediated optical loss in diamond nanophotonics and suggest strategies to harness defect-induced nonlinearities in future diamond photonic devices.
Abstract:Diamond is a leading quantum photonics platform due to its ability to host qubits based on crystal defects such as nitrogen-vacancy centres. Fabricating nanophotonic devices from defect-rich diamond, which underpins many quantum sensing technologies, promises enhanced performance and integrability of diamond quantum sensors. Here we demonstrate microdisk cavities fabricated from defect-rich diamond that support optical modes with high quality factor (${Q}\sim7\times10^4$ at $1042\,$nm) and show that they exhibit saturable absorption. Power-dependent spectroscopy measurements spanning 979$\,$nm to 1604$\,$nm are used to observe intensity-dependent cavity loss and extract wavelength-dependent absorption coefficients and saturation intensities. At 1047$\,$nm, we observe saturation and measure a saturation intensity of $2.1\,(8)\,$MW/cm$^2$ and an absorption coefficient of $0.53\,(2)\,$cm$^{-1}$. These results provide insight into defect-mediated optical loss in diamond nanophotonics and suggest strategies to harness defect-induced nonlinearities in future diamond photonic devices.
Optics (physics.optics); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
arXiv:2603.11367 [physics.optics]
(or arXiv:2603.11367v2 [physics.optics] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.11367 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite
https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.597613 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources
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