We grow high purity diamond in-house using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). This allows us to create a high-quality lattice environment for hosting defects with long spin coherence and gives control over the defect formation process. We have developed methods to create high density, thin layers of nitrogen within the diamond and are currently working to push nitrogen incorporation to the high density limit while striving to better understand the underlying growth mechanisms. We are also experimenting with bringing the nitrogen layers close to the diamond surface to create shallow NV centers using for quantum sensing experiments.
Underlying our diamond growth studies is the desire to better understand and control defect formation. We are interested in employing fermi level engineering techniques to influence defect formation dynamics and charge states, and we are actively working on this by studying the diamond surface termination and passivation. We aim to bring a materials science and defect engineering perspective to create more robust and coherent solid-state qubits for a wide variety of experiments in quantum sensing and simulation.