Abstract
Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has emerged as a promising platform for generating room temperature single photons exhibiting high brightness and spin-photon entanglement. However, improving emitter purity, stability, and scalability remains a challenge for quantum technologies. Here, we demonstrate highly pure and stable single-photon emitters (SPEs) in h-BN by directly growing carbon-doped, centimeter-scale h-BN thin films using the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. These SPEs exhibit room temperature operation with polarized emission, achieving a g(2)(0) value of 0.015, which is among the lowest reported for room temperature SPEs and the lowest achieved for h-BN SPEs. It also exhibits high brightness (~0.5 million counts per second), remarkable stability during continuous operation (>15 min), and a Debye-Waller factor of 45%. First-principles calculations reveal unique carbon defects responsible for these properties, enabled by PLD’s low-temperature synthesis and in situ doping. Our results demonstrate an effective method for large-scale production of high-purity, stable SPEs in h-BN, enabling robust quantum optical sources for various quantum applications.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | eadv2899 |
| Journal | Science Advances |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 25 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 20 2025 |
Funding
A.C. and S.h. acknowledge the funding support of the national Science Foundation (eCCS-2230400, eCCS-1943895, and eCCS-2246564), Welch Foundation (C-2144), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-22-1-0408). A.B. and P.M.A. acknowledge the funding supported by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Clarkson Aerospace Corp. (FA9550-24-1-0004). A.S.F. and B.G.S. acknowledge work supports at the Center for nanophase Materials Sciences, a US department of energy Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge national laboratory. i.A. acknowledges financial support fromthe Australian Research Council (Ce200100010 and Ft220100053), the Office of naval Research Global (n62909-22-1-2028), and Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA2386-25-1-4044.