Generating quantum light emitters that operate at room temperature and at telecom wavelengths remains a significant materials challenge. To achieve this goal requires light sources that emit in the near-infrared wavelength region and that, ideally, are tunable to allow desired output wavelengths to be accessed in a controllable manner. Here, we show that exciton localization at covalently introduced aryl sp3 defect sites in single-walled carbon nanotubes provides a route to room-temperature single-photon emission with ultrahigh single-photon purity (99%) and enhanced emission stability approaching the shot-noise limit. Moreover, we demonstrate that the inherent optical tunability of single-walled carbon nanotubes, present in their structural diversity, allows us to generate room-temperature single-photon emission spanning the entire telecom band. Furthermore, single-photon emission deep into the centre of the telecom C band (1.55 um) is achieved at the largest nanotube diameters we explore (0.936 nm).
@article{osti_1379462,
author = {He, Xiaowei and Hartmann, Nicolai F. and Ma, Xuedan and Kim, Younghee and Ihly, Rachelle and Blackburn, Jeffrey L. and Gao, Weilu and Kono, Junichiro and Yomogida, Yohei and Hirano, Atsushi and others},
title = {Tunable room-temperature single-photon emission at telecom wavelengths from <i>sp</i><sup>3</sup> defects in carbon nanotubes},
annote = {Generating quantum light emitters that operate at room temperature and at telecom wavelengths remains a significant materials challenge. To achieve this goal requires light sources that emit in the near-infrared wavelength region and that, ideally, are tunable to allow desired output wavelengths to be accessed in a controllable manner. Here, we show that exciton localization at covalently introduced aryl sp3 defect sites in single-walled carbon nanotubes provides a route to room-temperature single-photon emission with ultrahigh single-photon purity (99%) and enhanced emission stability approaching the shot-noise limit. Moreover, we demonstrate that the inherent optical tunability of single-walled carbon nanotubes, present in their structural diversity, allows us to generate room-temperature single-photon emission spanning the entire telecom band. Furthermore, single-photon emission deep into the centre of the telecom C band (1.55 um) is achieved at the largest nanotube diameters we explore (0.936 nm).},
doi = {10.1038/nphoton.2017.119},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1379462},
journal = {Nature Photonics},
issn = {ISSN 1749-4885},
number = {9},
volume = {11},
place = {United States},
publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
year = {2017},
month = {07}}
Chu, Xiao-Liu; Gotzinger, Stephan; Sandoghdar, Vahid
2017 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe (CLEO/Europe) & European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC), 2017 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)https://doi.org/10.1109/cleoe-eqec.2017.8087610