Quantum-confined single photon emission at room temperature from Silicon carbide tetrapods

TL;DR

This paper introduces silicon carbide tetrapods as a new quantum system capable of room-temperature single photon emission, advancing nanophotonics and quantum sensing technologies.

Contribution

It reports the discovery and characterization of silicon carbide tetrapods with unique quantum confinement properties and room-temperature single photon emission.

Findings

Observation of polarized, narrowband single photon emission at room temperature

Modeling predicts bound excitons at the 3C/4H interface

Potential applications in sensing and quantum information

Abstract

Controlled engineering of isolated solid state quantum systems is one of the most prominent goals in modern nanotechnology. In this letter we demonstrate a previously unknown quantum system namely silicon carbide tetrapods. The tetrapods have a cubic polytype core (3C) and hexagonal polytype legs (4H) a geometry that creates a spontaneous polarization within a single tetrapod. Modeling of the tetrapod structures predict that a bound exciton should exist at the 3C 4H interface. The simulations are confirmed by the observation of fully polarized and narrowband single photon emission from the tetrapods at room temperature. The single photon emission provides important insights towards understanding the quantum confinement effects in non-spherical nanostructures. Our results pave the way to a new class of crystal phase nanomaterials that exhibit single photon emission at room temperature and therefore are suitable for sensing, quantum information and nanophotonics.