Narrow inhomogeneous distribution of spin-active emitters in silicon carbide

TL;DR

This paper shows that silicon vacancy centers in silicon carbide have a very narrow distribution of optical lines, enabling scalable quantum networks without external tuning, and introduces schemes for generating entangled states.

Contribution

It demonstrates the narrow inhomogeneous distribution of optical lines in SiC defect centers and proposes simplified methods for creating entangled quantum states.

Findings

Only 13 defects needed for overlapping optical lines

Identified emitters with overlapping emission within diffraction limits

Potential for scalable quantum network applications

Abstract

Optically active solid-state spin registers have demonstrated their unique potential in quantum computing, communication and sensing. Realizing scalability and increasing application complexity requires entangling multiple individual systems, e.g. via photon interference in an optical network. However, most solid-state emitters show relatively broad spectral distributions, which hinders optical interference experiments. Here, we demonstrate that silicon vacancy centres in semiconductor silicon carbide (SiC) provide a remarkably small natural distribution of their optical absorption/emission lines despite an elevated defect concentration of $\approx 0.43\,\rm \mu m^{-3}$. In particular, without any external tuning mechanism, we show that only 13 defects have to be investigated until at least two optical lines overlap within the lifetime-limited linewidth. Moreover, we identify emitters with overlapping emission profiles within diffraction limited excitation spots, for which we introduce simplified schemes for generation of computationally-relevant Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) and cluster states. Our results underline the potential of the CMOS-compatible SiC platform toward realizing networked quantum technology applications.