Paper detail

Influence of extended defects on the formation energy, the hyperfine structure, and the zero-field splitting of NV centers in diamond

We present a density functional theory analysis of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond which are located in the vicinity of extended defects, namely intrinsic stacking faults (ISF), extrinsic stacking faults (ESF), and coherent twin boundaries (CTB) on \{111\} planes in diamond crystals. Several sites for NV centers close to the extended defects are energetically preferred with respect to the bulk crystal. This indicates that NV centers may be enriched at extended defects. We report the hyperfine structure (HFS) and zero-field splitting (ZFS) parameters of the NV centers at the extended defects which typically deviate by about 10\% but in some cases up to 90\% from their bulk values. Furthermore, we find that the influence of the extended defects on the NV centers is of short range: NV centers that are about three double layers (corresponding to $\sim6$ $\mathring{A}$ away from defect planes already show bulk-like behavior.