NV centers in diamond: spin-selective photokinetics, optical ground-state spin alignment and hole burning

It is shown that the spin-selective photokinetics of the substitutional nitrogen atom and a vacancy (NV) defect center in diamond, which have been elucidated recently by low-temperature, fine-structure-resolved experiments on an individual NV center in diamond nanocrystals, underlies the optical alignment of the electron spin of the center in the ground 3A state and allows to interpret the complicated hole/antihole burning spectra for NV ensemble in diamond samples with a high NV content.