Quantum-confined single photon emission at room temperature from SiC tetrapods

Controlled engineering of isolated solid state quantum systems is one of the most prominent goals in modern nanotechnology. In this letter we demonstrate a previously unknown quantum system namely silicon carbide tetrapods. The tetrapods have a cubic polytype core (3C) and hexagonal polytype legs (4H)-a geometry that creates spontaneous polarization within a single tetrapod. Modeling of the tetrapod structures predicts that a bound exciton should exist at the 3C-4H interface. The simulations are confirmed by the observation of fully polarized and narrowband single photon emission from the tetrapods at room temperature. The single photon emission provides important insights into understanding the quantum confinement effects in non-spherical nanostructures. Our results pave the way to a new class of crystal phase nanomaterials that exhibit single photon emission at room temperature and therefore are suitable for sensing, quantum information and nanophotonics. © 2014 the Partner Organisations

Single-photon emitting diode in silicon carbide

Electrically driven single-photon emitting devices have immediate applications in quantum cryptography, quantum computation and single-photon metrology. Mature device fabrication protocols and the recent observations of single defect systems with quantum functionalities make silicon carbide (SiC) an ideal material to build such devices. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of bright single photon emitting diodes. The electrically driven emitters display fully polarized output, superior photon statistics (with a count rate of $>$300 kHz), and stability in both continuous and pulsed modes, all at room temperature. The atomic origin of the single photon source is proposed. These results provide a foundation for the large scale integration of single photon sources into a broad range of applications, such as quantum cryptography or linear optics quantum computing.Comment: Main: 10 pages, 6 figures. Supplementary Information: 6 pages, 6 figure

Advanced capabilities for materials modelling with Quantum ESPRESSO

Quantum ESPRESSO is an integrated suite of open-source computer codes for quantum simulations of materials using state-of-the art electronic-structure techniques, based on density-functional theory, density-functional perturbation theory, and many-body perturbation theory, within the plane-wave pseudo-potential and projector-augmented-wave approaches. Quantum ESPRESSO owes its popularity to the wide variety of properties and processes it allows to simulate, to its performance on an increasingly broad array of hardware architectures, and to a community of researchers that rely on its capabilities as a core open-source development platform to implement theirs ideas. In this paper we describe recent extensions and improvements, covering new methodologies and property calculators, improved parallelization, code modularization, and extended interoperability both within the distribution and with external software

Optically detected magnetic resonances of nitrogen-vacancy ensembles in C 13 -enriched diamond

We present an experimental and theoretical study of the optically detected magnetic resonance signals for ensembles of negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in a C13 isotopically enriched single-crystal diamond. We observe four broad transition peaks with superimposed sharp features at zero magnetic field and study their dependence on an applied magnetic field. A theoretical model that reproduces all qualitative features of these spectra is developed. Understanding the magnetic-resonance spectra of NV centers in an isotopically enriched diamond is important for emerging applications in nuclear magnetic resonance

Optically detected magnetic resonances of nitrogen-vacancy ensembles in C 13 -enriched diamond

We present an experimental and theoretical study of the optically detected magnetic resonance signals for ensembles of negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in 13C isotopically enriched single-crystal diamond. We observe four broad transition peaks with superimposed sharp features at zero magnetic field and study their dependence on applied magnetic field. A theoretical model that reproduces all qualitative features of these spectra is developed. Understanding the magnetic-resonance spectra of NV centers in isotopically enriched diamond is important for emerging applications in nuclear magnetic resonance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Bright Room-Temperature Single-Photon Emission from Defects in Gallium Nitride

Researchers report room-temperature (RT), bright, stable single-photon emitters (SPEs) in GaN films that do not require any post-growth sample treatments. The emitters are defects that are optically active in the visible/near-infrared spectral range, and the zero-phonon lines (ZPL) span a wide range of wavelengths. They are found in five GaN wafers that have different doping types and levels, and are grown on various substrates using metal organic chemical vapor deposition various substrates using metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), the most common commercially viable technique for the growth of device-grade GaN

Computational Spectroscopy of Large Systems in Solution: The DFTB/PCM and TD-DFTB/PCM Approach

The Density Functional Tight Binding (DFTB) and Time Dependent DFTB (TD-DFTB) methods have been coupled with the Polarizable Continuum Model (PCM) of solvation, aiming to study spectroscopic properties for large systems in condensed phases. The calculation of the ground and the excited state energies, together with the analytical gradient and Hessian of the ground state energy, have been implemented in a fully analytical and computationally effective approach. After sketching the theoretical background of both DFTB and PCM, we describe the details of both the formalism and the implementation. We report a number of examples ranging from vibrational to electronic spectroscopy, and we identify the strengths and the limitations of the DFTB/PCM method. We also evaluate DFTB as a component in a hybrid approach, together with a more refined quantum mechanical (QM) method and PCM, for the specific case of anharmonic vibrational spectra