Room temperature Single Photon Sources in Silicon Carbide

Defects are common in many materials and some were regarded for years as detrimental. Recently with the advent of ultra-sensitive detectors, quantum optical single spin magnetic resonance protocols and advanced material synthesis and doping, diamond intra-band gap defects and their nanostructured counterpart are revealed to be a disruptive discovery for the future of nanoscale sensing and quantum technologies[1]. We will report on recently studied optical centres in another wide-band gap semiconductor, such as silicon carbide (SiC). SiC harbors paramagnetic defects whose quantum properties were recently unraveled [2-7]. As occurred for similar diamond point defects[1], we have recently identified a bright single photon emission in 4H-SiC. We will show more recent results on single defects SiC nanoparticles [8], nanotetrapods [9] and other SiC quantum emission [10] providing novel information on their physics and atomistic structure. The fundamental understanding of these defects is essential for their engineering and deployment in next generation multifunctional sensors and in quantum nano- photonics. We will discuss the potential designs of photonics cavities to further enhance some of these single photon sources.