A detection scheme was presented that cold be used to measure the absorption cross-section of the nitrogen vacancy centre, together with the results of an experimental implementation of this method. It was also demonstrated how the number of nitrogen vacancy centres in a crystal could be quantified by calculating the collection efficiency of the apparatus. It was found that the absorption cross-section for 532 nm excitation, averaged over the possible orientations of the transition dipole moments was 9.5 x 10-17cm2. This level of accuracy has not been achieved in previous investigations.

Quantitative Luminescence Microscopy on Nitrogen-Vacancy Centres in Diamond: Saturation Effects under Pulsed Excitation. R.Chapman, T.Plakhotnik: Chemical Physics Letters, 2011, 507[1–3], 190–4