Single V2 defect in 4H silicon carbide Schottky diode at low temperature
Nanoelectrical and photonic integration of quantum optical components is crucial for scalable solid-state quantum technologies. Silicon carbide stands out as a material with mature quantum defects and a wide variety of applications in semiconductor industry. Here, we study the behaviour of single silicon vacancy (V2) colour centres in a metal-semiconductor (Au/Ti/4H-SiC) epitaxial wafer device, operating in a Schottky diode configuration. We explore the depletion of free carriers in the vicinity of the defect, as well as electrical tuning of the defect optical transition lines. By detecting single charge traps, we investigate their impact on V2 optical line width. Additionally, we investigate the charge-photon-dynamics of the V2 centre and find its dominating photon-ionisation processes characteristic rate and wavelength dependence. Finally, we probe the spin coherence properties of the V2 system in the junction and demonstrate several key protocols for quantum network applications. Our work shows the first demonstration of low temperature integration of a Schottky device with optical microstructures for quantum applications and paves the way towards fundamentally scalable and reproducible optical spin defect centres in solids.
Authors
- Timo Steidl
- Misagh Ghezellou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1969-3324)
- Michel Bockstedte (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5720-4010)
- Rainer Stöhr (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3476-344X)
- Jörg Wrachtrup (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3328-9093)
- Pierre Kuna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8206-8514)
- Guodong Bian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2131-6998)
- Wolfgang Knolle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4455-6898)
- Ádám Gali (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3339-5470)
- Maximilian Schober (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9788-3302)
- Vadim Vorobyov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6784-4932)
- Jawad Ul‐Hassan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9537-2226)
- Di Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5117-8779)
- Erik Hesselmeier-Hüttmann
Institutions
- University of Stuttgart (DE)
- Linköping University (SE)
- Johannes Kepler University of Linz (AT)
- Harvard University (US)
- Budapest University of Technology and Economics (HU)
- Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (DE)
- HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics (HU)
- Momentum Research (US)
- Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-05-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59647-9
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.62
Funders
- Baden-Württemberg Stiftung
- European Commission
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
- Austrian Science Fund
- Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse
- Vetenskapsrådet
- QuantERA
- HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme