إن المضادات النقطية للطاقة الصلبة (SPEs) مثل العيوب الساطعة والمستقرة عند درجة حرارة الغرفة في النيتروجين البورون السداسي (hBN) يشتهرون بشكل متزايد في تطبيقات علم المعلومات الكمي. حتى الآن، لم يتم فهم أصول الذرية والإلكترونية لل SPEs داخل hBN بشكل جيد، ولا توجد دراسات تقرير عن الفوتوكروميزم أو استكشاف الارتباطات العامة بين SPEs hBN. هنا، نجمع بين القياسات التي تعتمد على الإشعاع والكميات الكونية والطيف الضوئي الصغير (${mu}$PL) مع التضارب الثنائي اللون لـ Hanbury Brown-Twiss لتمكين التحقيق في البنية الإلكترونية للعيوب في hBN. نحدد الفوتوكروميزم في SPE hBN الذي يظهر الارتباطات العامة والكميات الكونية المرتبطة بين إطلاق الخطين الصفر الصوتي.
Solid-state single-photon emitters (SPEs) such as the bright, stable, room-temperature defects within hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) are of increasing interest for quantum information science applications. To date, the atomic and electronic origins of SPEs within hBN are not well understood, and no studies have reported photochromism or explored cross-correlations between hBN SPEs. Here, we combine irradiation-time dependent measures of quantum efficiency and microphotoluminescence (${mu}$PL) spectroscopy with two-color Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometry to enable an investigation of the electronic structure of hBN defects. We identify photochromism in a hBN SPE that exhibits cross-correlations and correlated quantum efficiencies between the emission of its two zero-phonon lines.
Quantum emitters in van der Waals (vdW) materials have attracted lots of attentions in recent years, and shown great potentials to be fabricated as quantum photonic nanodevices. Especially, the single photon emitter (SPE) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) emerges with the outstanding room-temperature quantum performances, whereas the ubiquitous blinking and bleaching restrict its practical applications and investigations critically. The bubble in vdW materials exhibits the stable structure and can modify the local bandgap by strains on nanoscale, which is supposed to have the ability to fix this photostability problem. Here we report a bubble-induced high-purity SPE in hBN under ambient conditions showing stable quantum-emitting performances, and no evidence of blinking and bleaching for one year. Remarkably, we observe the nontrivial successive activating and quenching dynamical process of the fluorescent defects at the SPE region under low pressures for the first time, and the robust recoverability of the SPE after turning back to the atmospheric pressure. The pressure-tuned performance indicates the SPE origins from the lattice defect isolated and activated by the local strain induced from the bubble, and sheds lights on the future high-performance quantum sources based on hBN.
Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), a prevalent insulating crystal for dielectric and encapsulation layers in two-dimensional (2D) nanoelectronics and a structural material in 2D nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), has also rapidly emerged as a promising platform for quantum photonics with the recent discovery of optically active defect centers and associated spin states. Combined with measured emission characteristics, here we propose and numerically investigate the cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity-QED) scheme incorporating these defect-enabled single photon emitters (SPEs) in h-BN microdisk resonators. The whispering-gallery nature of microdisks can support multiple families of cavity resonances with different radial and azimuthal mode indices simultaneously, overcoming the challenges in coinciding a single point defect with the maximum electric field of an optical mode both spatially and spectrally. The excellent characteristics of h-BN SPEs, including exceptional emission rate, considerably high Debye-Waller factor, and Fourier transform limited linewidth at room temperature, render strong coupling with the ratio of coupling to decay rates g/max({gamma},k{appa}) predicated as high as 500. This study not only provides insight into the emitter-cavity interaction, but also contributes toward realizing h-BN photonic components, such as low-threshold microcavity lasers and high-purity single photon sources, critical for linear optics quantum computing and quantum networking applications.
Single photon emitters (SPEs) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) have garnered significant attention over the last few years due to their superior optical properties. However, despite the vast range of experimental results and theoretical calculations, the defect structure responsible for the observed emission has remained elusive. Here, by controlling the incorporation of impurities into hBN and by comparing various synthesis methods, we provide direct evidence that the visible SPEs are carbon related. Room temperature optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) is demonstrated on ensembles of these defects. We also perform ion implantation experiments and confirm that only carbon implantation creates SPEs in the visible spectral range. Computational analysis of hundreds of potential carbon-based defect transitions suggest that the emission results from the negatively charged VBCN- defect, which experiences long-range out-of-plane deformations and is environmentally sensitive. Our results resolve a long-standing debate about the origin of single emitters at the visible range in hBN and will be key to deterministic engineering of these defects for quantum photonic devices.
We demonstrate the fabrication of large-scale arrays of single photon emitters (SPEs) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). Bottom-up growth of hBN onto nanoscale arrays of dielectric pillars yields corresponding arrays of hBN emitters at the pillar sites. Statistical analysis shows that the pillar diameter is critical for isolating single defects, and diameters of ~250 nm produce a near-unity yield of a single emitter at each pillar site. Our results constitute a promising route towards spatially-controlled generation of hBN SPEs and provide an effective and efficient method to create large scale SPE arrays. The results pave the way to scalability and high throughput fabrication of SPEs for advanced quantum photonic applications.
Luminescent defect-centers in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) have emerged as a promising 2D-source of single photon emitters (SPEs) due to their high brightness and robust operation at room temperature. The ability to create such emitters with well-defined optical properties is a cornerstone towards their integration into on-chip photonic architectures. Here, we report an effective approach to fabricate hBN single photon emitters (SPEs) with desired emission properties in two isolated spectral regions via the manipulation of boron diffusion through copper during atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD)--a process we term gettering. Using the gettering technique we deterministically place the resulting zero-phonon line (ZPL) between the regions 550-600 nm or from 600-650 nm, paving the way for hBN SPEs with tailored emission properties across a broad spectral range. Our ability to control defect formation during hBN growth provides a simple and cost-effective means to improve the crystallinity of CVD hBN films, and lower defect density making it applicable to hBN growth for a wide range of applications. Our results are important to understand defect formation of quantum emitters in hBN and deploy them for scalable photonic technologies.