What is it about?
Point defects or impurities in semiconductors are promising to realize single-photon emission, a crucial component of quantum networks. We develop a model to study the efficiency of these quantum emitters with a focus on the role of vibrations. Vibrational coupling severely limits the efficiency at longer wavelengths, and we propose methods to try to overcome these limitations.
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Why is it important?
Design and discovery of novel defect-based emitters largely focus on telecom-wavelength emitters, to make use of low-loss fiber optic cables for transmission. Based on our model, we demonstrate that nonradiative transitions enabled by coupling to phonons grow exponentially with increasing wavelength. For typical emitter parameters, nonradiative decay dominates at telecom wavelengths. We show that coupling to a photonic cavity or engineering of the phonon frequency can be fruitful ways to overcome this limitation. These insights will have an important effect on future works to design defect-based single-photon emitters.
Perspectives
I hope this article helps researchers to re-evaluate their approach to defect-based quantum emitters. Perhaps too much attention has been paid to telecom-wavelength emitters: efficiency will be a large challenge. If we instead focus on designing the best emitter possible, even at shorter wavelengths, we may obtain a better system overall. Indeed the efficiency of quantum frequency conversion is improving, and free-space transmission is also a possibility.
Mark Turiansky
University of California Santa Barbara
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Rational design of efficient defect-based quantum emitters, APL Photonics, June 2024, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0203366.
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