Greatly Enhanced Emission from Spin Defects in Hexagonal Boron Nitride Enabled by a Low-Loss Plasmonic Nanocavity.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36383034.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c03100.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
The negatively charged boron vacancy (V<sub>B</sub><sup>-</sup>) defect in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) with optically addressable spin states has emerged due to its potential use in quantum sensing. Remarkably, V<sub>B</sub><sup>-</sup> preserves its spin coherence when it is implanted at nanometer-scale distances from the hBN surface, potentially enabling ultrathin quantum sensors. However, its low quantum efficiency hinders its practical applications. Studies have reported improving the overall quantum efficiency of V<sub>B</sub><sup>-</sup> defects with plasmonics; however, the overall enhancements of up to 17 times reported to date are relatively modest. Here, we demonstrate much higher emission enhancements of V<sub>B</sub><sup>-</sup> with low-loss nanopatch antennas (NPAs). An overall intensity enhancement of up to 250 times is observed, corresponding to an actual emission enhancement of ∼1685 times by the NPA, along with preserved optically detected magnetic resonance contrast. Our results establish NPA-coupled V<sub>B</sub><sup>-</sup> defects as high-resolution magnetic field sensors and provide a promising approach to obtaining single V<sub>B</sub><sup>-</sup> defects.