Bright Single-Photon Emitting Diodes Based on the Silicon-Vacancy Center in AlN/Diamond Heterostructures

Abstract

Practical implementation of many quantum information and sensing technologies relies on the ability to efficiently generate and manipulate single-photon photons under ambient conditions. Color centers in diamond, such as the silicon-vacancy (SiV) center, have recently emerged as extremely attractive single-photon emitters for room temperature applications. However, diamond is a material at the interface between insulators and semiconductors. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to excite color centers electrically and consequently develop bright and efficient electrically driven single-photon sources. Here, using a comprehensive theoretical approach, we propose and numerically demonstrate a concept of a single-photon emitting diode (SPED) based on a SiV center in a nanoscale AlN/diamond heterojunction device. We find that in spite of the high potential barrier for electrons in AlN at the AlN/diamond heterojunction, under forward bias, electrons can be efficiently injected from AlN into the i-type diamond region of the n-AlN/i-diamond/p-diamond heterostructure, which ensures bright single-photon electroluminescence (SPEL) of the SiV center located in the i-type diamond region. The maximum SPEL rate is more than five times higher than what can be achieved in SPEDs based on diamond p-i-n diodes. Despite the high density of defects at the AlN/diamond interface, the SPEL rate can reach about 4 Mcps, which coincides with the limit imposed by the quantum efficiency and the lifetime of the shelving state of the SiV center. These findings provide new insights into the development of bright room-temperature electrically driven single-photon sources for quantum information technologies and, we believe, stimulate further research in this area.

Optoelectronics of Color Centers in Diamond and Silicon Carbide: From Single‐Photon Luminescence to Electrically Controlled Spin Qubits

“…The maximum SPEL rate of single color centers in a diamond p-i-n diode at room temperature was estimated to be of the order of 10 6 photons s −1 . [93] A higher brightness of color centers in diamond under electrical pumping might be achieved only by using heterostructures, such as, AlN/diamond heterostructures, [134] which is yet to be proved experimentally. One can also increase the SPEL rate of the color center by increasing the temperature of the diamond diode.…”

Two‐Step Reactive Ion Etching Process for Diamond‐Based Nanophotonics Structure Formation

“…Basing on the fact that molybdenum has a low resistance to fluorine containing SF 6 -based plasma and high selectivity to oxygen-based plasma, we proposed a new chlorine-free two-step RIE process for diamond microfabrication, as schematically shown in Figure 2B. For molybdenum film etching, we used the following process: SF 6 demonstrated the fabrication of different kinds of 3D surface microstructures: trenches and ridges ( Figure 5A,B), developed surface ( Figure 3D and 6). Sidewall steepness angle is α ¼ 84 .…”

“…[1,2] Moreover, diamond color centers, specifically, nitrogen-vacancy, silicon-vacancy, and germaniumvacancy, are one of the most promising quantum systems for information processing, [3] physical sensing, [4,5] and single-photon applications. [6] Widespread complementary metal oxide semiconductor technologies cannot be applied to diamond [7] due to its high chemical resistance; thus, the development of diamond photonics devices (DPD) became possible only recently due to great technological progress in diamond micro-and nanoscale structuring. [8] The technological pinnacle of diamond photonics is diamond integrated photonic circuits (IPC) [9,10] usually consisting of a functional 3D-structured diamond submicrometer layer located on low refractive index substrate (typically, SiO 2 ) and coated by low refractive index cladding.…”

Investigation of the stability and charge states of vacancy in clusters Si29 and Si38

“…Therefore, the determination of the structure of the local region of the defect formation with the participation of a vacancy and the effect of the surface on the stability of the defect is of great importance. Zhang et al researched the quantum confinement effect on the vacancy-induced spin polarization in carbon, silicon, and germanium nanoparticles by density functional analysis [16,17].…”