Scalable quantum photonics with single color centers in silicon carbide

Radulaski, Marina and Widmann, Matthias and Niethammer, Matthias and Zhang, Jingyuan Linda and Lee, Sang-Yun and Rendler, Torsten and Lagoudakis, Konstantinos G. and Son, Nguyen Tien and Janzén, Erik and Ohshima, Takeshi and Wrachtrup, Jörg and Vučković, Jelena (2017) Scalable quantum photonics with single color centers in silicon carbide. Nano Letters, 17 (3). pp. 1782-1786. ISSN 1530-6992 (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b05102)

[thumbnail of Radulaski-etal-NL2017-Scalable-quantum-photonics-with-single-color-centers]
Preview
Text. Filename: Radulaski_etal_NL2017_Scalable_quantum_photonics_with_single_color_centers.pdf
Accepted Author Manuscript

Download (845kB)| Preview

Abstract

Silicon carbide is a promising platform for single photon sources, quantum bits (qubits), and nanoscale sensors based on individual color centers. Toward this goal, we develop a scalable array of nanopillars incorporating single silicon vacancy centers in 4H-SiC, readily available for efficient interfacing with free-space objective and lensed-fibers. A commercially obtained substrate is irradiated with 2 MeV electron beams to create vacancies. Subsequent lithographic process forms 800 nm tall nanopillars with 400–1400 nm diameters. We obtain high collection efficiency of up to 22 kcounts/s optical saturation rates from a single silicon vacancy center while preserving the single photon emission and the optically induced electron-spin polarization properties. Our study demonstrates silicon carbide as a readily available platform for scalable quantum photonics architecture relying on single photon sources and qubits.