Tuning colour centres at a twisted hexagonal boron nitride interface

Su, Cong; Zhang, Fang; Kahn, Salman; Shevitski, Brian; Jiang, Jingwei; Dai, Chunhui; Ungar, Alex; Park, Ji-Hoon; Watanabe, Kenji; Taniguchi, Takashi; Kong, Jing; Tang, Zikang; Zhang, Wenqing; Wang, Feng; Crommie, Michael; Louie, Steven G.; Aloni, Shaul; Zettl, Alex

doi:10.1038/s41563-022-01303-4

Title: Tuning colour centres at a twisted hexagonal boron nitride interface

Journal Article · Thu Jul 14 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Nature Materials

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01303-4 · OSTI ID:1906698

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Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division; Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen (China); University of Macau (China)
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Materials Sciences Division; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Molecular Foundry
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba (Japan)
University of Macau (China)
Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen (China)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Molecular Foundry

The colour centre platform holds promise for quantum technologies, and hexagonal boron nitride has attracted attention due to the high brightness and stability, optically addressable spin states and wide wavelength coverage discovered in its emitters. However, its application is hindered by the typically random defect distribution and complex mesoscopic environment. In this study, employing cathodoluminescence, we demonstrate on-demand activation and control of colour centre emission at the twisted interface of two hexagonal boron nitride flakes. Further, we show that colour centre emission brightness can be enhanced by two orders of magnitude by tuning the twist angle. Additionally, by applying an external voltage, nearly 100% brightness modulation is achieved. Our ab initio GW and GW plus Bethe–Salpeter equation calculations suggest that the emission is correlated to nitrogen vacancies and that a twist-induced moiré potential facilitates electron–hole recombination. This mechanism is further exploited to draw nanoscale colour centre patterns using electron beams.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; National Science Foundation (NSF); Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT); US Army Research Office (ARO)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1906698

Journal Information:: Nature Materials, Journal Name: Nature Materials Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 21; ISSN 1476-1122

Publisher:: Springer Nature - Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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