Optical Nonreciprocity in Rotating Diamond with Nitrogen-Vacancy Color Centers

A method to realize optical nonreciprocity in rotating nano-diamond with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers is theoretically proposed here. Because of the relative motion of the NV center with respect to the propagating fields, the frequencies of the fields are shifted due to the Doppler effect. When the control and probe fields are incident to the NV center from the same direction, the two-photon resonance still holds as the Doppler shifts of the two fields are the same. Thus, due to the electromagnetically-induced transparency, the probe light can pass through the NV center nearly without absorption. However, when the two fields propagate in opposite directions, the probe light cannot effectively pass through the NV center as a result of the breakdown of two-photon resonance.