Quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride were recently reported to hold unusual narrow homogeneous linewidths of tens of megahertz within the Fourier transform limit at room temperature. This unique observation was traced back to decoupling from in-plane phonon modes. Here, we investigate the origins for the mechanical decoupling. New sample preparation improved spectral diffusion, which allowed us to reveal a gap in the electron-phonon spectral density for low phonon frequencies. This sign for mechanical decoupling persists up to room temperature and explains the observed narrow lines at 300 kelvin. We investigate the dipole emission directionality and reveal preferred photon emission through channels between the layers supporting the claim for out-of-plane distorted defect centers. Our work provides insights into the underlying physics for the persistence of Fourier transform limit lines up to room temperature and gives a guide to the community on how to identify the exotic emitters.

Integrated nanophotonics is an emerging field with high potential for quantum technology applications such as quantum sensing or quantum networks. A desired photonics platform is Si 3 N 4 due to lowphoton loss and well-established fabrication techniques. However, quantum optics applications are not yet established. Here, we investigate an approach toward Si 3 N 4 -based quantum photonics utilizing a crossed waveguide, pump−probe design. The platform enables efficient, on-chip excitation, strong background suppression, and at the same time, efficient coupling to the mode of a high-Q photonic crystal cavity. The freestanding photonic crystal cavities reach high Q-factors up to 47 × 10 3 . To test our platform, we positioned an ensemble of negatively charged nitrogen vacancy centers located in a nanodiamond within the interaction zone of the photonic crystal cavity. We quantify the efficiency of the coupling with the β λ -factor reaching values as large as 0.71. We further demonstrate on-chip excitation of the quantum emitter with strong suppression (∼20 dB) of the background fluorescence. Our results unfold the potential to utilize negatively charged nitrogen vacancy centers in nanodiamonds and Si 3 N 4 platforms as an efficient, on-chip spin-photon interface in quantum photonics experiments.

AbstractHybrid quantum photonics combines classical photonics with quantum emitters in a postprocessing step. It facilitates to link ideal quantum light sources to optimized photonic platforms. Optical cavities enable to harness the Purcell-effect boosting the device efficiency. Here, we postprocess a free-standing, crossed-waveguide photonic crystal cavity based on Si3N4 with SiV− center in nanodiamonds. We develop a routine that optimizes the overlap with the cavity electric field utilizing atomic force microscope (AFM) nanomanipulation to attain control of spatial and dipole alignment. Temperature tuning further gives access to the spectral emitter-cavity overlap. After a few optimization cycles, we resolve the fine-structure of individual SiV− centers and achieve a Purcell enhancement of more than 4 on individual optical transitions, meaning that four out of five spontaneously emitted photons are channeled into the photonic device. Our work opens up new avenues to construct efficient quantum photonic devices.

Optical coupling enables intermediate-and long-range interactions between distant quantum emitters. Such interaction may be the basic element in bottom-up approaches of coupled spin systems or for integrated quantum photonics and quantum plasmonics. Here, we prepare nanodiamonds carrying single, negatively-charged silicon-vacancy centers for evanescent optical coupling with access to all degrees of freedom by means of atomic force nanomanipulation. The color centers feature excellent optical properties, comparable to silicon-vacancy centers in bulk diamond, resulting in a resolvable fine structure splitting, a linewidth close to the Fourier-Transform limit under resonant excitation and a good polarization contrast. We determine the orbital relaxation time T 1 of the orbitally split ground states and show that all optical properties are conserved during translational nanomanipulation. Furthermore, we demonstrate the rotation of the nanodiamonds. In contrast to the translational operation, the rotation leads to a change in polarization contrast. We utilize the change in polarization contrast before and after nanomanipulation to determine the rotation angle. Finally, we evaluate the likelihood for indistinguishable, single photon emission of silicon-vacancy centers located in different nanodiamonds. Our work enables ideal evanescent, optical coupling of distant nanodiamonds containing silicon-vacancy centers with applications in the realization of quantum networks, quantum repeaters or complex quantum systems.

Spin-based, quantum-photonics promise to realize distributed quantum computing and quantum networks. The performance depends on an efficient entanglement distribution where cavity quantum electrodynamics could boost the efficiency. The central challenge is the development of compact devices with large spin-photon coupling rates and a high operation bandwidth. Photonic crystal cavities comprise strong field confinement but require highly accurate positioning of atomic systems in mode field maxima. Negatively charged silicon-vacancy centers in diamond emerged as promising atom-like systems. Spectral stability and access to long-lived, nuclear-spin memories enabled elementary demonstrations of quantum network nodes, including memory-enhanced quantum communication. In a hybrid approach, we deterministically place SiV-containing nanodiamonds inside one hole of one-dimensional, freestanding, Si3N4-based photonic crystal cavities and coherently couple individual optical transitions to cavity modes. We optimize light–matter coupling utilizing two-mode composition, waveguiding, Purcell-enhancement, and cavity-resonance tuning. The resulting photon flux increases by 14 compared to free space. Corresponding lifetime-shortening below 460 ps puts potential operation bandwidth beyond GHz rates.