Characterisation of nanodiamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres spontaneous emission as a single photon source

With its inbuilt, unique spin and optical properties, negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in diamond have attracted wide interest in interdisciplinary research fields, ranging from quantum technologies, high-resolution magnetometry to biomedical imaging and tracking. Most of the highly sensitive applications of diamond-NV centers in the above fields rely on bright, controllable and photo-stable NV luminescence from very small diamond nanocrystals. Nanodiamond NV centre has been widely studied in the past decade and significant enhancements in its emission rate and capture factors were achieved. Nevertheless a complete picture of its spontaneous emission under the influence of the local electromagnetic nano-environment was non-existent at the beginning of my research study. In my research, I sought to improve the understanding of NV emission by systematically  isolating the various individual mechanisms influencing its emission. In this talk, I will shows how the systematic approach of our study of nanodiamond NV emission under a range of conditions and environments helped us to develop and contribute towards the evolved understanding of its spontaneous emission.