Castelletto Stefania, Inam Faraz A, Sato Shin-Ichiro, Boretti Alberto
School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia.
Dept. of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, U.P. 202002, India.
Beilstein J Nanotechnol. 2020 May 8;11:740-769. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.11.61. eCollection 2020.
Single-photon sources and their optical spin readout are at the core of applications in quantum communication, quantum computation, and quantum sensing. Their integration in photonic structures such as photonic crystals, microdisks, microring resonators, and nanopillars is essential for their deployment in quantum technologies. While there are currently only two material platforms (diamond and silicon carbide) with proven single-photon emission from the visible to infrared, a quantum spin-photon interface, and ancilla qubits, it is expected that other material platforms could emerge with similar characteristics in the near future. These two materials also naturally lead to monolithic integrated photonics as both are good photonic materials. While so far the verification of single-photon sources was based on discovery, assignment and then assessment and control of their quantum properties for applications, a better approach could be to identify applications and then search for the material that could address the requirements of the application in terms of quantum properties of the defects. This approach is quite difficult as it is based mostly on the reliability of modeling and predicting of color center properties in various materials, and their experimental verification is challenging. In this paper, we review some recent advances in an emerging material, low-dimensional (2D, 1D, 0D) hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), which could lead to establishing such a platform. We highlight the recent achievements of the specific material for the expected applications in quantum technologies, indicating complementary outstanding properties compared to the other 3D bulk materials.
单光子源及其光学自旋读出是量子通信、量子计算和量子传感应用的核心。将它们集成到光子晶体、微盘、微环谐振器和纳米柱等光子结构中,对于它们在量子技术中的应用至关重要。虽然目前只有两种材料平台(金刚石和碳化硅)具有从可见光到红外的已证实的单光子发射、量子自旋-光子界面和辅助量子比特,但预计在不久的将来会出现其他具有类似特性的材料平台。这两种材料也自然地导致了单片集成光子学,因为它们都是良好的光子材料。虽然到目前为止,单光子源的验证是基于对其量子特性的发现、识别,然后进行评估和控制以用于应用,但更好的方法可能是确定应用,然后寻找在缺陷的量子特性方面能够满足应用要求的材料。这种方法相当困难,因为它主要基于对各种材料中色心特性的建模和预测的可靠性,并且对其进行实验验证具有挑战性。在本文中,我们回顾了一种新兴材料——低维(二维、一维、零维)六方氮化硼(h-BN)的一些最新进展,它可能会导致建立这样一个平台。我们强调了这种特定材料在量子技术预期应用方面的最新成果,表明了与其他三维块状材料相比其互补的优异特性。