Quantifying the Effects of Sample Treatments on Quantum Emitters in Hexagonal Boron Nitride
Abstract
Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has emerged as a leading two-dimensional van der Waals material for next-generation quantum technologies. In particular, recent studies have identified spin-dependent quantum emission from defect states within the bandgap of hBN, making it a promising platform for quantum information processing and sensing applications. These optical-frequency emitters are among the brightest known, but they display heterogenous properties and are poorly understood at the microscopic level. Confounding this, samples have undergone a variety of treatments in reported experiments - the two most common treatments being low-energy (keV) electron-beam irradiation and high-temperature (850C) annealing in inert gas - with only a qualitative understanding of their effects. Here we systematically and quantitatively study the effect of these treatments using an analytical model which relates pixel intensity distributions from large-area confocal photoluminescence images to the density and brightness distributions of emitter ensembles. The results inform future efforts to control the formation and stabilization of quantum emitters in hBN.
This work was supported by the Army Research Office (W911NF-15-1-0589).- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019APS..MARA11008B