Negatively charged silicon vacancy centers (${\mathrm{SiV}}^{-}$) in diamond exhibit excellent optical properties and, below $100\mathrm{m}\mathrm{K}$, excellent spin coherence, making them promising candidates for quantum technologies. However, the strain-induced inhomogeneous distribution of optical transition frequencies poses a challenge for scalability. We demonstrate electrical tuning of the ${\mathrm{SiV}}^{-}$ center zero-phonon lines using in-plane contacts to apply moderate electric fields up to $45\mathrm{M}\mathrm{V}/\mathrm{m}$. The second-order Stark shift exceeds $10\mathrm{G}\mathrm{Hz}$, which is of the same order of magnitude as the 15-GHz inhomogeneous distribution of ${\mathrm{SiV}}^{-}$ observed in emitters embedded in optical nanostructures such as photonic crystal nanocavities. Analysis of individual ${\mathrm{SiV}}^{-}$ centers shows significant variation in effective polarizabilities between defects indicating that the effective polarizability strongly depends on local parameters like strain. The observed effective polarizabilities are $\approx 3–25$ times larger than those of tin vacancy centers, which we attribute to valence band resonances that delocalize the $e_u$ wave functions. Photoluminescence excitation measurements reveal that optical linewidths increase moderately with applied electric field strength. Our results demonstrate that large electrical Stark shifts can overcome the inhomogeneous distribution of transition frequencies, representing a significant step toward scalable ${\mathrm{SiV}}^{-}$-based quantum technologies such as quantum repeaters.

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• Charge dynamics
• Electric polarization
• Electro-optical spectra
• Laser spectroscopy
• Quantum repeaters
• Silicon vacancies
• Single photon sources
• Stark effect
• Diamond
• Photoluminescence