E. Cobas
US Naval Research Laboratory,
United States
Keywords: single photon emitters, quantum emitters, quantum key distribution, 2D materials, boron nitride
Summary:
Single photon light sources which can be used to produce entangled photon pairs via parametric down-conversion are a key part of secure quantum communications technologies, such as quantum key distribution. Several materials systems are being explored which efficiently produce single photons at useful wavelengths and rates. One appealing material candidate is hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). hBN flakes have been found to host single photon emitters in visible wavelengths with minimal energy loss to phonon bands by multiple research groups. However, there are a wide range of published yields, wavelengths and lifetimes dependent on material source and lot, material processing to create, activate or passivate defects and measurement protocols. Consequently, there is still uncertainty about the atomic nature of all observed emitters in hBN. In this talk we will review the most recent results on hBN single photon emitters and present our experimental findings on deterministically placed single photon emitters in hBN via electron beam irradiation and ion milling, and discuss future work.