Spectral tuning of single T centres by the Stark effect

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates spectral tuning of silicon T centres using the Stark effect within nanophotonic cavities, enabling improved resonance control for quantum technology applications.

Contribution

The study integrates single T centres into silicon nanophotonic cavities with p-i-n diodes, achieving Stark tuning up to 30 GHz and demonstrating enhanced entanglement potential.

Findings

Achieved up to 30 GHz Stark tuning of T centres.

Brought 55% of on-chip T centres into mutual resonance.

Observed bias-induced modulation of optical transition splitting.

Abstract

Among the many solid-state emitters being explored for scalable quantum technologies, the silicon T centre is a leading candidate offering long-lived spin qubits, a telecommunications-band spin-photon interface, and integration with on-chip photonic circuits. However, nanophotonic integration broadens both the inhomogeneous spectral distribution and individual emitter linewidths. Here, we integrate single T centres into silicon nanophotonic cavities with p-i-n diodes for local electronic control. These devices enable Stark tuning up to 30 GHz, sufficient to bring 55(2)% of on-chip T centres into mutual resonance, and demonstrate tunable lifetime reduction across the cavity resonance. A model of the joint excitation probability shows an orders-of-magnitude increase in entanglement rate by tuning distinct emitters into mutual resonance. Luminescence modulation at high reverse biases reveals a transition to a dark charge state. Finally, bias-induced modulation of the optical transition splitting uncovers a potential mechanism for electrically driven excited-state spin mixing via spin-orbit coupling. Localized and individual spectral tuning increases the yield of performant silicon spin-photon interfaces and the number of devices per chip available for large-scale entanglement and quantum information technologies.