Vibronic effects in the 1.4-eV optical center in diamond

We report optical absorption and luminescence measurements on the 1.4-eV center in diamond. We show that the zero-phonon lines have a temperature-dependent Ni-isotope shift, that the isotopic shifts induced by carbon and nickel are opposite in sign, and that a local vibronic mode is present in the absorption spectrum but not in luminescence. The microscopic properties of the center are successfully analyzed with the Ludwig-Woodbury theory (LWT), revealing that the Ni⁺ ion in the 1.4-eV center only weakly interacts with the diamond lattice. The importance of vibronic effects in the LWT analysis is experimentally demonstrated. It is believed that similar effects can account for the discrepancies previously encountered in modeling other 3d⁹ impurities in semiconductors.