Designer van der Waals materials for quantum optical emission

Isolated, optically-active defects generated in solids could lead to single photon emission. 2D vdW materials as host materials for single photon emission hold various advantages, such as high optical extraction efficiency, and readiness to integrate with on-chip photonic and electronic devices. However, single photon emission from 2D vdW materials typically suffers from low purity and lack of controllability, due to the sensitivity of these atomically-thin materials to external dielectric environments. This talk introduces our recent efforts to improve the single photon purity and controllability in vdW materials. By developing designer vdW materials, we were able to achieve high purity (> 98%) for single photons emitted from 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) at cryogenic temperature and in hBN at room temperature. This work provides deep insights into the electronic, spin, and valley properties of TMDs and hBN. It also paves the way towards the application of 2D vdW materials for quantum optical applications. The materials engineering approaches developed here can be applied to the optimization of other optical and quantum materials.