Richarda Niemann
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA _______________________________________
With the rapidly increasing interest in quantum information technologies the miniaturization of on-chip devices using quantum photonic circuits has become a critical field of research. A central building block for these circuits are single photon emitters (SPEs) [1]. It was shown that a variety of materials can host SPEs, including III-V quantum dots, nanotubes, or nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers in diamond among others [2-4]. An ideal SPE can generate single photons with high efficiency, can be operated at predefined locations and offer tunable emission wavelengths.
A material attracting broad attention as a SPE host is hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) [5]. Intense research has been focused on demonstrating that hBN offers stable and efficient single-photon emission at room temperature, while covering a broad emission wavelength range from NUV to NIR [6,7]. It was shown that within this spectral range that the SPE emission frequencies can be spectrally tuned by using external stimuli such as strain, applying an electric field, or via electrostatic gating. However, to implement single photons in quantum information technologies, increased emission efficiency and on-chip device design is required. One approach to face this challenge is the integration of SPEs into photonic components, such as optical devices integrated into photonic waveguides [5].
Here, we present our results on deterministic placement of SPEs in hBN flakes onto resonant photonic filters integrated within optical waveguides as a first step towards a single photon emission efficiency increase through waveguide in-coupling. We discuss different emitter generation approaches such as focused ion beam (FIB) irradiation and AFM tip nanoindentation for lattice defect creation. By changing parameters such as FIB dwell times and AFM cantilever displacement we examine the influence of different defect creation recipes on successful single photon emitter generation.
References:
[1] Peyskens et al., Nat Commun 10, 4435 (2019)
[2] Davanco et al., Nat. Comm. 8, 889 (2017)
[3] Khasminskaya et al., Nat. Photon. 10, 727–733 (2016)
[4] Mouradian et al., Phys. Rev. X 5, 031009 (2015)
[5] Moon et al., Adv. Mater. 2023, 35, 2204161
[6] Tran et al., Nat. Nano-technol. 2016, 11, 37
[7] Bourrellier et al., Nano Letters 16 (7), 4317-4321 (2016)
Email: richarda.niemann@vanderbilt.edu