High Q-Factor Diamond Optomechanical Resonators with Silicon Vacancy Centers at Millikelvin Temperatures
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Updated: Jul 25, 2026

Fabrication of Silica Ultra High Quality Factor Microresonators
Published on: July 2, 2012
Graham Joe1, Cleaven Chia1,2, Benjamin Pingault1,3,4
1John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States.
Abstract:
Phonons are envisioned as coherent intermediaries between different types of quantum systems. Engineered nanoscale devices, such as optomechanical crystals (OMCs), provide a platform to utilize phonons as quantum information carriers. Here we demonstrate OMCs in diamond designed for strong for interactions between phonons and a silicon vacancy (SiV) spin. Using optical measurements at millikelvin temperatures, we measure a line width of 13 kHz (Q-factor of ∼4.4 × 105) for a 6 GHz acoustic mode, a record for diamond in the GHz frequency range and within an order of magnitude of state-of-the-art line widths for OMCs in silicon. We investigate SiV optical and spin properties in these devices and outline a path toward a coherent spin-phonon interface.

