Enhanced single-photon emission from a diamond–silver aperture

Solid-state quantum emitters, such as the nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond1, are robust systems for practical realizations of various quantum information processing protocols2,3,4,5 and nanoscale magnetometry schemes6,7 at room temperature. Such applications benefit from the high emission efficiency and flux of single photons, which can be achieved by engineering the electromagnetic environment of the emitter. One attractive approach is based on plasmonic resonators8,9,10,11,12,13, in which sub-wavelength confinement of optical fields can strongly modify the spontaneous emission of a suitably embedded dipole despite having only modest quality factors. Meanwhile, the scalability of solid-state quantum systems critically depends on the ability to control such emitter–cavity interaction in a number of devices arranged in parallel. Here, we demonstrate a method to enhance the radiative emission rate of single nitrogen-vacancy centres in ordered arrays of plasmonic apertures that promises greater scalability over the previously demonstrated bottom-up approaches for the realization of on-chip quantum networks.