Fabrication and characterization of a co-planar detector in diamond for low energy single ion implantation

We demonstrate low energy single ion detection using a co-planar detector fabricated on a diamond substrate and characterized by ion beam induced charge collection. Histograms are taken with low fluence ion pulses illustrating quantized ion detection down to a single ion with a signal-to-noise ratio of approximately 10. We anticipate that this detection technique can serve as a basis to optimize the yield of single color centers in diamond. The ability to count ions into a diamond substrate is expected to reduce the uncertainty in the yield of color center formation by removing Poisson statistics from the implantation process.