The understanding of the coherence properties of photons emitted from negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond is essential for the success of quantum information applications based on indistinguishable photons. Here we study both the polarization of photons emitted from and the linewidth of photons absorbed by single NV centers as a function of temperature T. We find that for T < 100 K the main dephasing mechanism contributing to the linewidth broadening is phonon-mediated population transfer between the two excited orbital states. The observed T⁵ temperature dependence of the population transfer rate and linewidth is experimental evidence of a dynamic Jahn-Teller effect in the excited states.

Date Published: 8 February 2010
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7611, Advances in Photonics of Quantum Computing, Memory, and Communication III, 761108 (8 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.843827

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7611:
Advances in Photonics of Quantum Computing, Memory, and Communication III
Zameer U. Hasan; Alan E. Craig; Philip R. Hemmer; Charles M. Santori, Editor(s)