Speaker
Description
Quantum technologies are reshaping our understanding of computation and communication, promising capabilities fundamentally beyond classical limits. Among the many physical platforms under investigation, solid-state emitters stand out for their potential scalability and on-chip integrability — making them attractive building blocks for future quantum network nodes.
Color centres in diamond are particularly compelling candidates, combining exceptional optical coherence with long-lived spin states. Yet extracting useful signal from single emitters remains a central challenge: efficient, coherent photon emission is essential for both computation and communication protocols, and bulk diamond is notoriously uncooperative in this regard.
Various approaches have been explored to overcome these limitations — thin membranes, nanodiamonds, and structured bulk diamond among them. This talk focuses on the last: integrating emitters into photonic structures fabricated directly in diamond. Waveguides offer a natural first step, routing single photons on-chip and dramatically improving collection efficiency compared to bulk. Building on this, coupling emitters to resonator structures introduces cavity quantum electrodynamic effects, further enhancing emission rates and light-matter interaction — as demonstrated in nanobeam and photonic crystal cavities, open microcavities, and ring resonators.
The key challenge underlying all of this is fabrication. Here we present our nanofabrication approach for diamond photonic structures and characterise the resulting devices — from waveguides to resonators. We show that the process preserves emitter properties, an essential but often overlooked requirement. Finally, we offer a glimpse of the experiments these structures are now enabling. While robustness and yield remain active areas of development, these results demonstrate a viable path toward integrated diamond photonic devices for quantum applications.
