Senichev Alexander, Martin Zachariah O, Peana Samuel, Sychev Demid, Xu Xiaohui, Lagutchev Alexei S, Boltasseva Alexandra, Shalaev Vladimir M
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Birck Nanotechnology Center and Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA.
The Quantum Science Center (QSC), a National Quantum Information Science Research Center of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Oak Ridge, TN 37931, USA.
Sci Adv. 2021 Dec 10;7(50):eabj0627. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abj0627.
Single-photon emitters are essential in enabling several emerging applications in quantum information technology, quantum sensing, and quantum communication. Scalable photonic platforms capable of hosting intrinsic or embedded sources of single-photon emission are of particular interest for the realization of integrated quantum photonic circuits. Here, we report on the observation of room-temperature single-photon emitters in silicon nitride (SiN) films grown on silicon dioxide substrates. Photophysical analysis reveals bright (>10 counts/s), stable, linearly polarized, and pure quantum emitters in SiN films with a second-order autocorrelation function value at zero time delay g(0) below 0.2 at room temperature. We suggest that the emission originates from a specific defect center in SiN because of the narrow wavelength distribution of the observed luminescence peak. Single-photon emitters in SiN have the potential to enable direct, scalable, and low-loss integration of quantum light sources with a well-established photonic on-chip platform.
单光子发射器对于实现量子信息技术、量子传感和量子通信中的多种新兴应用至关重要。能够承载本征或嵌入式单光子发射源的可扩展光子平台对于实现集成量子光子电路尤为重要。在此，我们报告了在生长于二氧化硅衬底上的氮化硅（SiN）薄膜中观测到室温单光子发射器。光物理分析表明，在室温下，SiN薄膜中存在明亮（>10计数/秒）、稳定、线性偏振且纯的量子发射器，其零时间延迟下的二阶自相关函数值g(0)低于0.2。由于观测到的发光峰波长分布狭窄，我们认为发射源于SiN中的特定缺陷中心。SiN中的单光子发射器有潜力实现量子光源与成熟的光子片上平台的直接、可扩展且低损耗集成。
