New application of NV centers in CVD diamonds as a fluorescent nuclear track detector

Onoda, Shinobu; Haruyama, Moriyoshi; Teraji, Tokuyuki*; Isoya, Junichi*; Kada, Wataru*; Hanaizumi, Osamu*; Oshima, Takeshi

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond is a luminescent point defect with applications of quantum computation and atomic scale sensors. One of the most important features of NV center is high emission rate. This enables single NV centers to be detected using a confocal laser scanning microscope. In this study, we propose a new application of NV centers as a single ion track detector. We perform 490 MeV Os ion irradiation to diamond grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. After high temperature annealing at 1000 C, the ion track is able to be visualized by using confocal laser scanning microscope. In short, we have successfully detected ion track in diamonds.