A Scalable Method for Cavity-Enhanced Solid-State Quantum Sensors

Photoluminescent color centers in diamond and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) are powerful nanoscale solid-state quantum sensors that are explored in a plethora of quantum technologies. Methods for integrating them into macroscopic structures that improve their sensitivity and enable their large-scale deployment are highly sought after. Here, cavity-enhanced photoluminescence (PL) of fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs) and hBN nanoparticles (NPs) embedded in polymer-based thin-film optical cavities on the centimeter scale is demonstrated. The cavity resonances efficiently modulate the spectral PL peak position of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in FNDs across the NV PL spectrum and lead to an up to 2.9-fold Purcell-enhancement of the NV PL decay rate. The brightness of hBN NPs increases by up to a factor of three and the PL decay rate is enhanced by up to 13-fold inside the cavities. Finally, a 4.8 times improved magnetic field sensitivity of 20 nm FNDs is found in thin-film cavities due to cavity-enhanced optically detected magnetic resonance contrast and PL brightness. This study demonstrates a low-cost and scalable method for the fabrication of quantum sensor-doped thin-film cavities, which is an important step toward the development of advanced quantum sensing technologies.