Room temperature electroluminescence from isolated colour centres in van der Waals semiconductors

Abstract

Defects in wide bandgap semiconductors have recently emerged as promising candidates for solid-state quantum optical technologies. Electrical excitation of emitters may pave the way to scalable on-chip devices, and therefore is highly sought after. However, most wide band gap materials are not amenable to efficient doping, which in turn poses challenges on efficient electrical excitation and on-chip integration. Here, we demonstrate for the first time room temperature electroluminescence from isolated colour centres in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). We harness the van der Waals (vdW) structure of two-dimensional materials, and engineer nanoscale devices comprised of graphene - hBN - graphene tunnel junctions. Under an applied bias, charge carriers are injected into hBN, and result in a localised light emission from the hBN colour centres. Remarkably, our devices operate at room temperature and produce robust, narrowband emission spanning a wide spectral range - from the visible to the near infrared. Our work marks an important milestone in van der Waals materials and their promising attributes for integrated quantum technologies and on-chip photonic circuits.

16 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Photonic quantum technologies
• Phonon-assisted emission and absorption of individual color centers in hexagonal boron nitride
• Resonant and phonon-assisted ultrafast coherent control of a single hBN color center

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Creation and Microscopic Origins of Single-Photon Emitters in Transition Metal Dichalcogenides and Hexagonal Boron Nitride
• Quantifying the creation of negatively charged boron vacancies in He-ion irradiated hexagonal boron nitride
• Current-induced brightening of vacancy-related emitters in hexagonal boron nitride