A monolithic immersion metalens for imaging solid-state quantum emitters

Abstract

Quantum emitters such as the diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center are the basis for a wide range of quantum technologies. However, refraction and reflections at material interfaces impede photon collection, and the emitters’ atomic scale necessitates the use of free space optical measurement setups that prevent packaging of quantum devices. To overcome these limitations, we design and fabricate a metasurface composed of nanoscale diamond pillars that acts as an immersion lens to collect and collimate the emission of an individual NV center. The metalens exhibits a numerical aperture greater than 1.0, enabling efficient fiber-coupling of quantum emitters. This flexible design will lead to the miniaturization of quantum devices in a wide range of host materials and the development of metasurfaces that shape single-photon emission for coupling to optical cavities or route photons based on their quantum state.

Photon collection from quantum emitters is difficult, and their scale requires the use of free-space optical measurement setups which prevent packaging of quantum devices. Here, the authors design and fabricate a metasurface that acts as an immersion lens to collect and collimate the emission of an individual emitter.