Abstract

Efficient on-chip single photon sources are a crucial prerequisite for future applications in applied physical and quantum information science. A very promising candidate for a stable single photon source are defect centers in diamond as they emit single photons even at room temperature. By using nanodiamonds, the emission of such defect centers can be efficiently coupled to photonic and plasmonic structures. Our interest lies in the evanescent coupling of an emitter to purely dielectric structures providing strong broadband coupling and low intrinsic losses. This opens up promising perspectives for future applications in ultra-sensitive phase, absorption, and fluorescence spectroscopy. In addition, a single quantum emitter can shift the phase of a propagating laser beam by several degrees. This level of nonlinearity would, e.g., be sufficient to provide a useful photon-photon interaction for optical quantum information science.

© 2015 IEEE