Quantifying the number of color centers in single fluorescent nanodiamonds by photon correlation spectroscopy and Monte Carlo simulation

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Abstract
The number of negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centers ( N- V ) − in fluorescent nanodiamond (FND) has been determined by photoncorrelation spectroscopy and Monte Carlo simulations at the single particle level. By taking account of the random dipole orientation of the multiple ( N- V ) − fluorophores and simulating the probability distribution of their effective numbers ( N e ) , we found that the actual number ( N a ) of the fluorophores is in linear correlation with N e , with correction factors of 1.8 and 1.2 in measurements using linearly and circularly polarized lights, respectively. We determined N a = 8 ± 1 for 28 nm FND particles prepared by 3 MeV proton irradiation.