Metal-Dielectric Antennas for Efficient Photon Collection from Diamond Color Centers

Abstract: A central challenge in quantum technologies based on atom-like defects is the efficient collection of the emitter's fluorescence. Optical antennas are appealing as they offer directional emission together with spontaneous emission rate enhancement across a broad emitter spectrum. In this work, we introduce and optimize metal-dielectric nanoantenna designs recessed into a diamond substrate and aligned with quantum emitters. We analyze trade-offs between external quantum efficiency, collection efficiency, Purcell factor, and overall collected photon rate. This analysis shows that an optimized metal-dielectric hybrid structure can increase the collected photon rate from a nitrogen vacancy center by over two orders of magnitude compared to a bare emitter. As a result, these metal-dielectric antennas should enable single-shot electron spin measurements of NV centers at room temperature.