Hopping of the Center-of-Mass of Single G Centers in Silicon-on-Insulator
Among the wealth of single fluorescent defects recently detected in silicon, the G center catches interest for its telecom single-photon emission that could be coupled to a metastable electron spin triplet. The G center is a unique defect where the standard Born-Oppenheimer approximation used in sol...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Physical Society
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Physical Review X |
| Online Access: | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.14.041071 |
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| author | Alrik Durand Yoann Baron Péter Udvarhelyi Félix Cache Krithika V. R. Tobias Herzig Mario Khoury Sébastien Pezzagna Jan Meijer Jean-Michel Hartmann Shay Reboh Marco Abbarchi Isabelle Robert-Philip Adam Gali Jean-Michel Gérard Vincent Jacques Guillaume Cassabois Anaïs Dréau |
| author_facet | Alrik Durand Yoann Baron Péter Udvarhelyi Félix Cache Krithika V. R. Tobias Herzig Mario Khoury Sébastien Pezzagna Jan Meijer Jean-Michel Hartmann Shay Reboh Marco Abbarchi Isabelle Robert-Philip Adam Gali Jean-Michel Gérard Vincent Jacques Guillaume Cassabois Anaïs Dréau |
| author_sort | Alrik Durand |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Among the wealth of single fluorescent defects recently detected in silicon, the G center catches interest for its telecom single-photon emission that could be coupled to a metastable electron spin triplet. The G center is a unique defect where the standard Born-Oppenheimer approximation used in solid-state physics breaks down as one of its atoms, a silicon atom in interstitial position Si_{(i)}, can move between six sites. The impact of its displacement, due either to coherent tunneling or to random jumps from one site to another, on the optical properties of G centers is still largely unknown, especially in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) samples. Here, we investigate the displacement of the center of mass of the G center in silicon. By performing photoluminescence experiments at single-defect scale, we show that individual G defects in SOI exhibit several emission dipoles and zero-phonon line fine structures with splittings up to approximately 1 meV, both indicating a motion of the defect central atom over time. Combining polarization and spectral analysis at the single-photon level, we evidence that the reconfiguration dynamics is drastically different from the one of the unperturbed G center in bulk silicon where the mobile atom is fully delocalized over all six sites through tunneling. The SOI structure freezes the Si_{(i)} delocalization of the G defect and, as a result, enables one to isolate linearly polarized optical lines. Under above-band-gap optical excitation, the central atom of G centers in SOI behaves as if it were in a six-slot roulette wheel, randomly alternating between localized crystal sites at each optical cycle. Comparative measurements in a bulk silicon sample and ab initio calculations highlight that strain is likely the dominant perturbation impacting the G center geometry. These results shed light on the importance of the atomic reconfiguration dynamics to understand and control the photoluminescence properties of the G center in silicon. More generally, these findings emphasize the impact of strain fluctuations inherent to SOI wafers for future quantum integrated photonics applications based on color centers in silicon. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e6602d8b5ca14beebf19c976af4aa7fd |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2160-3308 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | American Physical Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Physical Review X |
| spelling | doaj-art-e6602d8b5ca14beebf19c976af4aa7fd2024-12-27T15:05:39ZengAmerican Physical SocietyPhysical Review X2160-33082024-12-0114404107110.1103/PhysRevX.14.041071Hopping of the Center-of-Mass of Single G Centers in Silicon-on-InsulatorAlrik DurandYoann BaronPéter UdvarhelyiFélix CacheKrithika V. R.Tobias HerzigMario KhourySébastien PezzagnaJan MeijerJean-Michel HartmannShay RebohMarco AbbarchiIsabelle Robert-PhilipAdam GaliJean-Michel GérardVincent JacquesGuillaume CassaboisAnaïs DréauAmong the wealth of single fluorescent defects recently detected in silicon, the G center catches interest for its telecom single-photon emission that could be coupled to a metastable electron spin triplet. The G center is a unique defect where the standard Born-Oppenheimer approximation used in solid-state physics breaks down as one of its atoms, a silicon atom in interstitial position Si_{(i)}, can move between six sites. The impact of its displacement, due either to coherent tunneling or to random jumps from one site to another, on the optical properties of G centers is still largely unknown, especially in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) samples. Here, we investigate the displacement of the center of mass of the G center in silicon. By performing photoluminescence experiments at single-defect scale, we show that individual G defects in SOI exhibit several emission dipoles and zero-phonon line fine structures with splittings up to approximately 1 meV, both indicating a motion of the defect central atom over time. Combining polarization and spectral analysis at the single-photon level, we evidence that the reconfiguration dynamics is drastically different from the one of the unperturbed G center in bulk silicon where the mobile atom is fully delocalized over all six sites through tunneling. The SOI structure freezes the Si_{(i)} delocalization of the G defect and, as a result, enables one to isolate linearly polarized optical lines. Under above-band-gap optical excitation, the central atom of G centers in SOI behaves as if it were in a six-slot roulette wheel, randomly alternating between localized crystal sites at each optical cycle. Comparative measurements in a bulk silicon sample and ab initio calculations highlight that strain is likely the dominant perturbation impacting the G center geometry. These results shed light on the importance of the atomic reconfiguration dynamics to understand and control the photoluminescence properties of the G center in silicon. More generally, these findings emphasize the impact of strain fluctuations inherent to SOI wafers for future quantum integrated photonics applications based on color centers in silicon.http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.14.041071 |
| spellingShingle | Alrik Durand Yoann Baron Péter Udvarhelyi Félix Cache Krithika V. R. Tobias Herzig Mario Khoury Sébastien Pezzagna Jan Meijer Jean-Michel Hartmann Shay Reboh Marco Abbarchi Isabelle Robert-Philip Adam Gali Jean-Michel Gérard Vincent Jacques Guillaume Cassabois Anaïs Dréau Hopping of the Center-of-Mass of Single G Centers in Silicon-on-Insulator Physical Review X |
| title | Hopping of the Center-of-Mass of Single G Centers in Silicon-on-Insulator |
| title_full | Hopping of the Center-of-Mass of Single G Centers in Silicon-on-Insulator |
| title_fullStr | Hopping of the Center-of-Mass of Single G Centers in Silicon-on-Insulator |
| title_full_unstemmed | Hopping of the Center-of-Mass of Single G Centers in Silicon-on-Insulator |
| title_short | Hopping of the Center-of-Mass of Single G Centers in Silicon-on-Insulator |
| title_sort | hopping of the center of mass of single g centers in silicon on insulator |
| url | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.14.041071 |
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