Silicon carbide light-emitting diode as a prospective room temperature source for single photons

Abstract

Generation of single photons has been demonstrated in several systems. However, none of them satisfies all the conditions, e.g. room temperature functionality, telecom wavelength operation, high efficiency, as required for practical applications. Here, we report the fabrication of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on intrinsic defects in silicon carbide (SiC). To fabricate our devices we used a standard semiconductor manufacturing technology in combination with high-energy electron irradiation. The room temperature electroluminescence (EL) of our LEDs reveals two strong emission bands in the visible and near infrared (NIR) spectral ranges, associated with two different intrinsic defects. As these defects can potentially be generated at a low or even single defect level, our approach can be used to realize electrically driven single photon source for quantum telecommunication and information processing.

Single-photon emitting diode in silicon carbide

“…The EL arises with the recombination of electrons and holes at deep-level defect states 19,20 . Fig.…”

Engineering near-infrared single-photon emitters with optically active spins in ultrapure silicon carbide

“…Similarly, scattering losses at interfaces and signal attenuation in optical fibers decrease with wavelength as well. Furthermore, V Si -related defects in SiC can be integrated with existing optoelectronic devices 21 and, in contrast to GaAs-based quantum dots 22 , operate even at room temperature.…”

Room-temperature near-infrared silicon carbide nanocrystalline emitters based on optically aligned spin defects

“…The PL spectrum of the bulk crystal consists of a broad emission band from 850 nm to above 1000 nm [ Fig. 4(b)], inherent to the V Si defects 33 . It appears after neutron irradiation only and is not observed in as-grown crystals of Fig.…”