Ruffin Evans

Harvard University | Harvard · Department of Physics

Photon-mediated coupling between distant matter qubits may enable secure communication over long distances, the implementation of distributed quantum computing schemes, and the exploration of new regimes of many-body quantum dynamics. Solid-state quantum emitters coupled to nanophotonic devices represent a promising approach towards these goals, as...

Photon-mediated coupling between distant matter qubits may enable secure communication over long distances, the implementation of distributed quantum computing schemes, and the exploration of new regimes of many-body quantum dynamics. Nanophotonic devices coupled to solid-state quantum emitters represent a promising approach towards realization of...

Inducing interactions between quantum emitters The development of scalable quantum systems will require the ability to control the interactions between the individual quantum building blocks of the system. Evans et al. used a pair of silicon vacancy centers embedded in a diamond nanocavity to show that interactions between the quantum emitters can...

Photon-mediated interactions between quantum systems are essential for realizing quantum networks and scalable quantum information processing. We demonstrate such interactions between pairs of silicon-vacancy (SiV) color centers strongly coupled to a diamond nanophotonic cavity. When the optical transitions of the two color centers are tuned into r...

We control the electronic structure of the silicon-vacancy (SiV) color-center in diamond by changing its static strain environment with a nano-electro-mechanical system. This allows deterministic and local tuning of SiV optical and spin transition frequencies over a wide range, an essential step towards multiqubit networks. In the process, we infer...

Difluoroboron ß-diketonates show both fluorescence and room-temperature phosphorescence when confined to a rigid matrix such as poly(lactic acid). These materials have been utilized as optical oxygen sensors (e.g. tumors, wounds and cells). A series of naphthyl-phenyl dyes (BF₂nbm) (1-6) were prepared to test heavy-atom placement effects. The BF₂nb...

The negatively-charged silicon-vacancy (SiV$^-$) color center in diamond has recently emerged as a promising system for quantum photonics. Its symmetry-protected optical transitions enable creation of indistinguishable emitter arrays and deterministic coupling to nanophotonic devices. Despite this, the longest coherence time associated with its ele...

We demonstrate an all-optical thermometer based on an ensemble of silicon-vacancy centers (SiVs) in diamond by utilizing a temperature dependent shift of the SiV optical zero-phonon line transition frequency, $\Delta\lambda/\Delta T= 6.8\,\mathrm{GHz/K}$. Using SiVs in bulk diamond, we achieve $70\,\mathrm{mK}$ precision at room temperature with a...

Color centers in diamond provide a promising platform for quantum optics in the solid state, with coherent optical transitions and long-lived electron and nuclear spins. Building upon recent demonstrations of nanophotonic waveguides and optical cavities in single-crystal diamond, we now demonstrate on-chip diamond nanophotonics with a high efficien...

We demonstrate a quantum nanophotonics platform based on germanium-vacancy (GeV) color centers in fiber-coupled diamond nanophotonic waveguides. We show that GeV optical transitions have a high quantum efficiency and are nearly lifetime-broadened in such nanophotonic structures. These properties yield an efficient interface between waveguide photon...

A solid-state system combining a stable spin degree of freedom with an efficient optical interface is highly desirable as an element for integrated quantum optical and quantum information systems. We demonstrate a bright color center in diamond with excellent optical properties and controllable electronic spin states. Specifically, we carry out det...

The controlled creation of defect center---nanocavity systems is one of the outstanding challenges for efficiently interfacing spin quantum memories with photons for photon-based entanglement operations in a quantum network. Here, we demonstrate direct, maskless creation of atom-like single silicon-vacancy (SiV) centers in diamond nanostructures vi...

Integrated quantum nanophotonics Technologies that exploit the rules of quantum mechanics offer a potential advantage over classical devices in terms of sensitivity. Sipahigil et al. combined the quantum optical features of silicon-vacancy color centers with diamond-based photonic cavities to form a platform for integrated quantum nanophotonics (se...

Efficient interfaces between photons and quantum emitters form the basis for quantum networks and enable nonlinear optical devices operating at the single-photon level. We demonstrate an integrated platform for scalable quantum nanophotonics based on silicon-vacancy (SiV) color centers coupled to nanoscale diamond devices. By placing SiV centers in...

The negatively-charged silicon-vacancy ($\mathrm{SiV}^{-}$) center in diamond is a bright source of indistinguishable single photons and a useful resource in quantum information protocols. Until now, $\mathrm{SiV}^{-}$ centers with narrow optical linewidths and small inhomogeneous distributions of $\mathrm{SiV}^{-}$ transition frequencies have only...

Sensing single proteins with diamonds Nuclear magnetic resonance is a powerful technique for medical imaging and the structural analysis of materials, but is usually associated with large-volume samples. Lovchinsky et al. exploited the magnetic properties of a single spin associated with a defect in diamond and manipulated it with a quantum-logic p...

Here, we demonstrate direct, maskless creation of single silicon-vacancy centers in diamond nanostructures via focused ion beam implantation with <50 nm positioning precision and close to lifetime-limited emission linewidth of ~126(13) MHz.

The negatively-charged silicon-vacancy ($\mathrm{SiV}^{-}$) center in diamond is a bright source of indistinguishable single photons and a useful resource in quantum information protocols. Until now, $\mathrm{SiV}^{-}$ centers with narrow optical linewidths and small inhomogeneous distributions of $\mathrm{SiV}^{-}$ transition frequencies have only...

The dual-emissive properties of solid-state difluoroboron β-diketonate-poly(lactic acid) (BF2bdkPLA) materials have been utilized for biological oxygen sensing. In this work, BF2dbm(X)PLA materials were synthesized, where X = H, F, Cl, Br, and I. The effects of changing the halide substituent and PLA polymer chain length on the optical properties i...

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) is an important photophysical phenomenon in molecular materials and has found broad applications in optoelectronics, bioimaging and chemosensing. Currently, the majority of reported AIE-active molecules are based on either propeller-shaped rotamers or donor-acceptor molecules with strong intramolecular charge-tran...

We report the observation of stable optical transitions in nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers created by ion implantation. Using a combination of high temperature annealing and subsequent surface treatment, we reproducibly create NV centers with zero-phonon lines (ZPL) exhibiting spectral diffusion that is close to the lifetime-limited optical linewidth...

The realization of efficient optical interfaces for solid-state atom-like systems is an important problem in quantum science with potential applications in quantum communications and quantum information processing. We describe and demonstrate a technique for coupling single Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) centers to suspended diamond photonic crystal cavitie...

Aromatic difluoroboron β-diketonate complexes (BF2bdks) are classic fluorescent molecules that have been explored as photochemical reagents, two-photon dyes, and oxygen sensors. To gain a better understanding of their emissive properties in both solution and polymer matrices, BF2bdks with varying aromatic groups were synthesized and their photophys...

Difluoroboron [small beta]-diketone complexes are versatile light-emitting molecules that exhibit tunable emission in both solution and the solid state. Among this class of dyes, difluoroboron dibenzoylmethane-polylactide (BF2dbmPLA) polymers have been investigated for their molecular weight dependent fluorescence where the polymer chain plays an i...

We investigate theoretically the feasibility of an experimental test of the Bell-type in-equality derived by Mermin for correlated spins larger than 1/2. Using the Schwinger representation, we link the output fields of two two-mode squeezers in order to create correlated effective spins between two observers. Spin measurements will be performed by...

Since Bell's original paper in 1964, a wide variety of experimental tests have overwhelmingly supported the completeness of quantum mechanics over local hidden-variable theories. However, relatively little effort has focused on systems of spins larger than 12; generalizing Bell's result to higher dimensions is difficult, and the experiments needed...

Fluorescence spectroscopy has been widely used to monitor different polymer processes such as polymerization kinetics, chain entanglements, and thermal transitions. The solvent-free controlled ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of lactide is significant both commercially and for research; thus, monitoring this process with a simple fluorescence meth...

Difluoroboron β-diketonate−polymer conjugates have remarkable solid-state luminescent properties that are useful in a variety of fields including multiphoton microscopy, cell biology, and tumor hypoxia imaging. Despite the successful applications of these systems, the role of boron in these polymeric materials has not been thoroughly investigated....

A class of aryl trifluoromethyl-containing β-diketones were synthesized via one step Claisen condensation. These π-conjugated diketones exhibit strong solvatochromism from intramolecular donor-acceptor charge transfer (CT). In addition, fluorescence quantum yields (ϕf) and lifetimes (τf) were measured in different solvents. Diketones exhibit bathoc...