Electrically Pumped -BN Single-Photon Emission in van der Waals Heterostructure.

Atomic defects in solids offer a versatile basis to study and realize quantum phenomena and information science in various integrated systems. All-electrical pumping of single defects to create quantum light emission has been realized in several platforms including color centers in diamond and silicon carbide, which could lead to the circuit network of electrically triggered single-photon sources. However, a wide conduction channel which reduces the carrier injection per defect site has been a major obstacle.

Room Temperature Quantum Emitters in van der Waals α-MoO.

Quantum emitters in solid-state materials are highly promising building blocks for quantum information processing and communication science. Recently, single-photon emission from van der Waals materials has been reported in transition metal dichalcogenides and hexagonal boron nitride, exhibiting the potential to realize photonic quantum technologies in two-dimensional materials. Here, we report the generation of room temperature single-photon emission from exfoliated and thermally annealed single crystals of van der Waals α-MoO.

Polarization and Localization of Single-Photon Emitters in Hexagonal Boron Nitride Wrinkles.

Color centers in two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) have recently emerged as stable and bright single-photon emitters (SPEs) operating at room temperature. In this study, we combine theory and experiment to show that vacancy-based SPEs selectively form at nanoscale wrinkles in h-BN with its optical dipole preferentially aligned to the wrinkle direction. By using density functional theory calculations, we find that the wrinkle's curvature plays a crucial role in localizing vacancy-based SPE candidates and aligning the defect's symmetry plane to the wrinkle direction.