  Individual color centers in diamond are promising for near-term quantum
technologies including quantum key distribution and metrology. Here we show
fabrication of a new color center which has photophysical properties surpassing
those of the two main-stay centers, namely the nitrogen vacancy and NE8
centers. The new center is fabricated using focused ion beam implantation of
nickel into isolated chemical vapor deposited diamond micro-crystals. Room
temperature photoluminescence studies reveal a narrow emission in the near
infrared region centered at 768 nm with a lifetime as short as 2 ns. Its
focused ion beam compatibility opens the prospect to fabrication with nanometer
resolution and realization of integrated quantum photonic devices. Preliminary
investigations suggest that this center arises from an as-yet uncharacterized
nickel-silicon complex.
