Diamond diffractive optics-recent progress and perspectives

Diamond is an exceptional material that has recently seen a remarkable increase in interest in academic research and engineering since high-quality substrates became commercially available and affordable. Exploiting the high refractive index, hardness, laser-induced damage threshold, thermal conductivity and chemical resistance, an abundance of applications incorporating ever higher-performance diamond devices has seen steady growth. Among these, diffractive optical elements stand out-with progress in fabrication technologies, micro- and nano-fabrication techniques have enabled the creation of gratings and diffractive optical elements with outstanding properties. Research activities in this field have further been spurred by the unique property of diamond to be able to host optically active atom scale defects in the crystal lattice. Such color centers allow generation and manipulation of individual photons, which has contributed to accelerated developments in engineering of novel quantum applications in diamond, with diffractive optical elements amidst critical components for larger-scale systems. This review collects recent examples of diffractive optical devices in diamond, and highlights the advances in manufacturing of such devices using micro- and nano-fabrication techniques, in contrast to more traditional methods, and avenues to explore diamond diffractive optical elements for emerging and future applications are put in perspective.

Fabrication and Characterization of Freestanding Single Crystal Diamond and Silicon Microresonators

Teodoro Graziosi

Microresonators are fundamental building blocks of any photonic integrated circuit, as they can be used as filters, modulators, sensors, and to enhance light emission. If these resonators are suspended and are free to oscillate, we can exploit the interaction of the optical and mechanical resonance. Demonstration of the fundamental interactions between the optical and mechanical fields, as well as applications based on this physics, were already presented for other material systems such as silicon, silicon oxide, or silicon nitride. Single crystal diamond is a strong candidate to realise high quality resonators due to the excellent material properties. The mechanical properties, such as stiffness, low intrinsic damping, and high thermal conductivity, are critical for mechanical oscillators with high frequency and high quality factor, which is strongly correlated to the noise of the oscillator. The wide transparency range and the low absorption enable operation in a large wavelength range spanning from near ultraviolet to far infrared. Diamond can host very bright emitters, based on defects of the diamond lattice, which can be employed as single photon sources, quantum memories, or very sensitive magnetic sensors. Chemical resistance to most acids or bases permit operations in aggressive environments. For these reasons, single crystal diamond is an attractive platform for integrated photonics and micro- or nanomechanics, and it should be possible to realize low noise optomechanical resonators. However, compared to more established material systems, microfabrication of single crystal diamond is not easy. High quality single crystal diamond substrates are available, to date, only as bulk plates, therefore it is important to develop fabrication strategies that isolate optically and mechanically a thin diamond layer from the rest of the diamond substrate. Over the last years, several approaches have been proposed and in this work two methods will be employed: 3D milling using a focused ion beam to create micrometer sized disks supported by a narrow pillar; and etching of the bulk diamond using a plasma which is selective to particular crystal planes of the single crystal diamond. Using these processes, single crystal diamond microresonators were realized, measuring optical quality factors of 5700 and 42000 at telecom wavelengths, respectively, and of 3100 and 10500 at visible wavelengths, respectively. Single crystal silicon is similar in many aspects to single crystal diamond, with the material properties being slightly worse. However, silicon benefits from decades of knowledge developed for integrated electronic circuits and integrated silicon photonics circuits. Silicon photonics is now extensively used in telecommunications to interface the optical links to electronics. Commercial foundries started to offer silicon photonics services, either within the CMOS fabrication or with dedicated processes. Micro Electro Mechanical Systems represent a way to expand on the capability of photonic integrated circuits by providing low power and/or reconfigurable components. In this context, optomechanical oscillators were realized by postprocessing an IMEC iSiPP50G silicon photonics chip. Optical quality factors of 300000 were measured at telecom wavelengths. Mechanical oscillations are supported at 250 MHz, with quality factors of 1800 measured at ambient conditions.

EPFL2019

Single crystal diamond gain mirrors for high performance vertical external cavity surface emitting lasers

Andrei Caliman, Pascal Gallo, Gergely Huszka, Alexandru Mereuta, Mehdi Naamoun, Niels Quack, Grigore Suruceanu

We report on the design, fabrication and optical performance of gain mirrors in single crystal diamond substrates for vertical external cavity surface emitting lasers (VECSELs). VECSELs have gained attention recently due to their potential for high emission power in single mode with low beam divergence, yet their maximum output power remains typically limited due to thermal roll-over resulting from insufficient heat dissipation. In order to increase the heat transfer, we exploit the excellent thermal conductivity of single crystal diamond, which is assembled in direct contact with the active structure. The optical cavity is hereby defined by an output coupler and a high reflection grating structure etched into the diamond surface. We here present the design and microfabrication of a diffraction grating that was optimized to reflect light into the 0th order, therefore combining the role of a gain mirror and a heatsink at the same time. Our process involved metal mask deposition onto the diamond surface, e-beam lithography and reactive ion etching. Characterization showed reflection above 95% at a center wavelength of 1550 nm, potentially allowing the integration of the diamond mirror into a vertical external cavity surface emitting laser.

2020

Shining Diamond: from Micro- and Nano-Engineering to Quantum Photonics

Sichen Mi

The discovery of room-temperature single photon emission from color centers in diamond has in recent years boosted research interest in this renowned material in photonics and quantum community and beyond. Following understanding some basic principles of how the color centers work, new challenges arose: designing and fabricating real devices that leverage the unrivaled properties that diamond possesses. Due to this material's extreme physical hardness and its chemical resistance to etchants, the established semiconductor technologies cannot straightforwardly answer to the call for scalable and reliable fabrication of micro- and nano-photonic devices in single crystal diamond. In this thesis, we first demonstrate an unconventional polishing protocol with ion beam etching, which makes possible wafer-scale fine finishing of diamond substrates, the starting point for any subsequent processing. Following this we present the experimental observation of self-organized nanotextures on diamond induced by ion beam irradiation, a lithography-free approach for nanoengineering periodic structures. Regarding device fabrication, we obtained free-standing micro- and nano-photonic structures using angled reactive ion etching, facilitated by a novel and reproducible Faraday cage design. We also propose possible designs to interconnect individual components in hope of realizing a photonic integrated circuit in the future. Last but not least, we present spectroscopic characterization of single and ensemble color centers either grown by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition, or fabricated by ion implantation with subsequent high-temperature annealing, which are the fundamental building blocks for quantum applications. Photoluminescence spectra that, to our knowledge, are not seen in literature were recorded for ensemble silicon-vacancy centers at cryogenic temperature, signifying potentially unknown mechanism for tuning the optical transitions, and unexplored possibilities with this exciting material platform for quantum technologies.