Controlling the coupling of a single nitrogen vacancy center to a Silver nanowire

Dipole emitters are expected to efficiently couple to the plasmonic mode propagating along a cylindrically shaped metallic nano-structure. Such a strongly coupled system could serve as a fundamental building block for a single photon source on demand and a device enabling strong non-linear interaction at the level of a few photons. In our contribution we demonstrate the controlled coupling of a single nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in a diamond nano crystal to a nanowire made of silver. This is in contrast to previous realizations, where the nanowire dipole system was assembled randomly. Ultimate control over the relative nanowire diamond nano-crystal position is achieved by using an atomic force microscope (AFM) in contact mode operation.