Room-temperature single-photon emitters in silicon nitride.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34890236.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abj0627 and PMC identifier 8664256.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
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Abstract
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<sup>5</sup> counts/s), stable, linearly polarized, and pure quantum emitters in SiN films with a second-order autocorrelation function value at zero time delay g<sup>(2)</sup>(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.