Quantum Emission From Hexagonal Boron Nitride Monolayers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates room temperature quantum photon emission from hexagonal boron nitride monolayers, showcasing their potential for quantum technologies due to their superb optical properties.

Contribution

It reports the first room temperature quantum emission from hBN monolayers with record brightness and stability, identifying the antisite nitrogen vacancy as the emitter.

Findings

Achieved room temperature single-photon emission from hBN monolayers.

Discovered the antisite nitrogen vacancy as the quantum emitter.

Demonstrated high brightness and stability of the emission.

Abstract

Atomically thin van der Waals crystals have recently enabled new scientific and technological breakthroughs across a variety of disciplines in materials science, nanophotonics and physics. However, non-classical photon emission from these materials has not been achieved to date. Here we report room temperature quantum emission from hexagonal boron nitride nanoflakes. The single photon emitter exhibits a combination of superb quantum optical properties at room temperature that include the highest brightness reported in the visible part of the spectrum, narrow line width, absolute photo-stability, a short excited state lifetime and a high quantum efficiency. Density functional theory modeling suggests that the emitter is the antisite nitrogen vacancy defect that is present in single and multi-layer hexagonal boron nitride. Our results constitute the unprecedented potential of van der Waals crystals for nanophotonics, optoelectronics and quantum information processing.