Michl, JuliaTeraji, TokuyukiZaiser, SebastianJakobi, IngmarWaldherr, GeraldDolde, FlorianNeumann, PhilippDoherty, Marcus W.Manson, Neil B.Isoya, JunichiWrachtrup, Jörg2015-10-222015-10-220003-6951http://hdl.handle.net/1885/16024Synthetic diamond production is a key to the development of quantum metrology and quantum information applications of diamond. The major quantum sensor and qubit candidate in diamond is the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center. This lattice defect comes in four different crystallographic orientations leading to an intrinsic inhomogeneity among NV centers, which is undesirable in some applications. Here, we report a microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition diamond growth technique on (111)-oriented substrates, which yields perfect alignment (94% ± 2%) of as-grown NV centers along a single crystallographic direction. In addition, clear evidence is found that the majority (74% ± 4%) of the aligned NV centers were formed by the nitrogen being first included in the (111) growth surface and then followed by the formation of a neighboring vacancy on top. The achieved homogeneity of the grown NV centers will tremendously benefit quantum information and metrology applications.We acknowledge the financial support by DFG and JST (SFBTR 21, FOR 1482), by the BMBF (CHIST-ERA), by EU (Diamant and SIQS) and ARC (No. DP120102232).http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0003-6951..."Publishers version/PDF may be used on author's personal website, institutional website or institutional repository" from SHERPA/RoMEO site (as at 22/10/15). Copyright 2014 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Applied Physics Letters and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.48681282014-03-1210.1063/1.48681282015-12-10