Straightforward synthesis of silicon vacancy (SiV) center-containing single-digit nanometer nanodiamonds via detonation process

Silicon vacancy (SiV) color centers in diamond have attracted widespread attention owing to their stable photoluminescence (PL) with a sharp emission band the near-infrared region (ZPL 738 nm). Especially, SiV center containing single-digit nanometer-sized nanodiamonds (single-digit SiV-NDs) are desirable for various applications such as bioimaging and biosensing because of extremely small size, comparable many biomaterials. Therefore, several attempts been made fabricate SiV-NDs. However, there no reports on successful fabrication materials reasonable scale production. Here, we report synthesis SiV-NDs via straightforward detonation process, which is known high productivity NDs. Triphenylsilanol (TPS), silicon source, was mixed explosives (TPS/TNT/RDX = 1/59/40 wt%) process carried out. The obtained NDs exhibit PL at approximately nm, indicating that were successfully synthesized. Moreover, conjectured physics behind this achievement may be attributed aromatic ring TPS under consideration ND formation mechanism newly built up based results time-resolved optical measurements reaction.