Development of a Setup for Optically Induced Electron Paramagnetic Resonance and Testing on Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in Diamond

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers are point defects in diamond crystals that in recent years have gained significant attention due to their long spin coherence times even at room temperature. Of particular interest is the characteristic spin triplet level structure of the negatively charged NV centers in which optical excitation induces a non-Boltzmann population of spin states. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy can be used to study the electron spin dynamics of such systems. In this thesis, I developed a custom EPR spectrometer by integrating a commercial electromagnet with microwave components, electronic instrumentation and a laser for optical excitation. With this setup I measured the EPR signals of substitutional nitrogen (P1) centers and optically excited negatively charged NV centers, observing the effect of optical spin polarization.