No abstract

Inspired by recent developments in the control and manipulation of quantum dot nuclear spins, which allow for the transfer of an electron spin state to the surrounding nuclear-spin ensemble for storage, we propose a quantum repeater scheme that combines individual quantum dot electron spins and nuclear-spin ensembles, which serve as spin-photon interfaces and quantum memories respectively. We consider the use of low-strain quantum dots embedded in high-cooperativity optical microcavities. Quantum dot nuclear-spin ensembles allow for the long-term storage of entangled states, and heralded entanglement swapping is performed using cavity-assisted gates. We highlight the advances in quantum dot technologies required to realize our quantum repeater scheme which promises the establishment of high-fidelity entanglement over long distances with a distribution rate exceeding that of the direct transmission of photons.

Quantum emitters in two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) have generated significant interest due to observations of ultra-bright emission made at room temperature. The expectation that solid-state emitters exhibit broad zero-phonon lines at elevated temperatures has been put in question by recent observations of Fourier transform (FT) limited photons emitted from h-BN flakes at room temperature. All decoupled emitters produce photons that are directed in-plane, suggesting that the dipoles are perpendicular to the h-BN plane. Motivated by the promise of an efficient and scalable source of indistinguishable photons that can operate at room temperature, we have developed an approach using density functional theory (DFT) to determine the electron- phonon coupling for defects that have in- and out-of-plane transition dipole moments. Our DFT calculations reveal that the transition dipole for the C2CN defect is parallel to the h-BN plane, and for the VNNB defect is perpendicular to the plane. We calculate both the phonon density of states and the electron-phonon matrix elements associated with the h-BN defective structures. We find no indication that an out-of-plane transition dipole by itself will result in the low electron-phonon coupling that is expected to produce FT-limited photons at room temperature. Our work provides direction to future DFT software developments and adds to the growing list of calculations relevant to researchers in the field of solid-state quantum information processing.