Figure 1.

Nanofabrication process and synthesis of shallow NV centers in nanostructured samples. Electronic grade diamond with a very low concentration of nitrogen, less than 5 ppb, was masked with gold by sputtering (a) and then etched using oxygen reactive ion etching (b) to fabricate nanostructures, onto which nitrogen was implanted after gold removal (c). Samples were then annealed (d). SEM images show ≈150 nm high nanopillar-like structures (e). The SEM image was taken between steps (b) and (c), with still some conductive gold on the tips to improve image quality. Flat samples were implanted with ¹⁵N ions and then annealed, without application of any etching procedure.