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| The nitrogen-vacancy (NV$^{-1}$) center in diamond has emerged as a promising qubit candidate as it is an individually-addressable quantum system that can be controlled at room temperature. The success of the NV$^{-1}$ stems from its electronic structure as a point defect, yet only recently has their been a systematic effort to identify other defects that might behave in a similar way.$^1$ We present a list of physical criteria that these centers and their hosts should meet and explain how these requirements can be paired with electronic structure theory to intelligently sort through candidate systems. To illustrate, we compare calculations of the NV$^{-1}$ with those of several prospects in 4H silicon carbide. Using hybrid functionals, we report formation energies and configuration-coordinate diagrams to compare and contrast the properties of these defects. We also discuss how the criteria can serve as guidelines for discovering NV analogs in other tetrahedrally coordinated materials.
$^1$ J.R. Weber, W.F. Koehl, J.B. Varley, A. Janotti, B.B. Buckley, C.G. Van de Walle,
and D.D. Awschalom, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. {\bf 107}, 8513 (2010).
This work was supported by ARO, AFOSR, and NSF. |
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