A Silicon Carbide Room-temperature Single-photon Source

Overview

Journal Nat Mater

Date 2013 Nov 19

PMID 24240243

Citations 59

Authors

S Castelletto

B C Johnson

V Ivady

N Stavrias

T Umeda

A Gali

T Ohshima

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Over the past few years, single-photon generation has been realized in numerous systems: single molecules, quantum dots, diamond colour centres and others. The generation and detection of single photons play a central role in the experimental foundation of quantum mechanics and measurement theory. An efficient and high-quality single-photon source is needed to implement quantum key distribution, quantum repeaters and photonic quantum information processing. Here we report the identification and formation of ultrabright, room-temperature, photostable single-photon sources in a device-friendly material, silicon carbide (SiC). The source is composed of an intrinsic defect, known as the carbon antisite-vacancy pair, created by carefully optimized electron irradiation and annealing of ultrapure SiC. An extreme brightness (2×10(6) counts s(-1)) resulting from polarization rules and a high quantum efficiency is obtained in the bulk without resorting to the use of a cavity or plasmonic structure. This may benefit future integrated quantum photonic devices.

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