Generation and detection of fluorescent color centers in diamond with submicron resolution

Fluorescent color-center patterns have been written on surfaces of synthetic type-Ib diamonds with spatial resolution below 180 nm via irradiation with focused ion and electron beams and subsequent annealing. The patterns are detected and spectroscopically analyzed using confocal optical microscopy. From the spatial extent of the color-center distributions, the activation energy for diffusion of vacancies in diamond is determined as (2.55 +/- 0.15) eV. Detailed information about the formation of color centers in diamond is obtained employing the three-dimensional spatial resolution of the confocal microscope combined with spectral resolution. In particular, the distributions of two color centers, ascribed to different charge states of the NV defect in diamond, have been spatially mapped and shown to depend strongly on the irradiation dose. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)00546-X].