Charge-state stability of single NV centers in HPHT-type IIa diamond

Abstract

This is a preliminary version. Improvements and additional analysis will be included in a revised manuscript. We investigate the charge-state stability of individual nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in weakly doped HPHT IIa diamond containing sub-ppm concentrations of boron and nitrogen. Using Ti/Al coplanar electrodes on an oxygen-terminated surface, we study how applied electric fields and optical excitation jointly govern NV charge conversion. By combining voltage-dependent photoluminescence, real-time charge-state monitoring, laser-power saturation with spectral decomposition, and time-resolved measurements, we reveal that electric fields several micrometers from the contacts significantly increase the NV- population and enhance spin readout. At low excitation powers, the NV- population evolves on minute timescales following compressed-exponential kinetics, consistent with slow space-charge rearrangement in ultra-insulating diamond. Under pulsed excitation, we observe hundreds-of-nanoseconds NV-/NV0 conversion driven by hole capture, which is strongly suppressed by applied bias. Our results demonstrate that residual boron acceptors play a key role in determining charge-state stability and show how electrical bias can reliably stabilize NV- in weakly doped bulk diamond.