Metal-dielectric antennas for efficient photon collection from diamond color centers

Abstract

© 2018 Optical Society of America. A central challenge in quantum technologies based on atom-like defects is the e cient collection of the emitter’s fluorescence. Optical antennas are appealing as they o er directional emission together with spontaneous emission rate enhancement across a broad emitter spectrum. In this work, we introduce and optimize metal-dielectric nanoantenna designs recessed into a diamond substrate and aligned with quantum emitters. We analyze tradeo s between external quantum e ciency, collection e ciency, radiative Purcell factor, and overall collected photon rate. This analysis shows that an optimized metal-dielectric hybrid structure can increase the collected photon rate from a nitrogen vacancy center by over two orders of magnitude compared to a bare emitter.