Temperature controlled preferential orientation of Nitrogen-Vacancy centers in CVD grown (113) diamond crystal

The electronic spin system of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond has emerged as an excellent nanoscale sensor for detection and imaging of weak magnetic fields. Specifically, using an ensemble of n defects allows to enhance the detection sensitivity by a factor √n, provided that all centers are oriented along the same direction. Here we show that for CVD grown (113) diamond crystal, the growth temperature can be used as a controlled parameter for creating NV centers aligned along one of the four possible orientations in the crystal. We further show that this technique can be combined with delta-doping to generate thin concentrated layers of preferentially oriented NV centers. Besides increasing performances in quantum sensing, the control of deep point defect orientations in solids will also benefit in quantum information and quantum communication applications.