Single Color Centers in Diamond: Materials, Devices, and Applications

Photonic technologies play key roles in twenty-first century technologies. In addition to their traditional optical communications, quantum photonics, which relies on single photon emitters, offers new approaches to information processing. In this chapter, we discuss the photophysical properties and applications of single defects in diamond-also known as color centers. Although the focus will be on one particular emitter-the nitrogen-vacancy center, other defects will be mentioned and reviewed. Promising applications, namely, photonic devices and magnetometry, will be discussed in more detail, highlighting the recent literature. Finally, an outlook for diamond photonics will be presented. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved