Photostable single-photon emission from self-assembled nanocrystals of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates highly stable, room-temperature single-photon emission from self-assembled organic nanocrystals made of anthracene doped with dibenzoterrylene, with potential for integrated quantum photonics.

Contribution

It reports the first demonstration of hours-long stable single-photon emission from organic nanocrystals with near-lifetime-limited linewidths at cryogenic temperatures.

Findings

Hours-long photostability at room and cryogenic temperatures.

Near-lifetime-limited linewidth of 50 MHz at 3 K.

Potential for integration into photonic quantum devices.

Abstract

Quantum technologies could largely benefit from the control of quantum emitters in sub-micrometric size crystals. These are naturally prone to the integration in hybrid devices, including heterostructures and complex photonic devices. Currently available quantum emitters sculpted in nanocrystals suffer from spectral instability, preventing their use as single photon sources e.g., for most quantum optics operations. In this work we report on unprecedented performances of single-photon emission from organic nanocrystals (average size of hundreds \SI{}{\nano\meter}), made of anthracene (Ac) and doped with dibenzoterrylene (DBT) molecules. The source has hours-long photostability with respect to frequency and intensity, both at room and at cryogenic temperature. When cooled down to \SI{3}{K}, the 00-zero phonon line shows linewidth values (\SI{50}{MHz}) close to the lifetime-limit. Such optical properties in a nanocrystalline environment make the proposed organic nanocrystals a unique single-photon source for integrated photonic quantum technologies.