Lifetime Limited and Tunable Quantum Light Emission in h-BN via Electric Field Modulation

Abstract: Color centered-based single photon emitters in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) have shown promising photophysical properties as sources for quantum light emission. Despite significant advances towards such a goal, achieving lifetime-limited quantum light emission in h-BN has proven to be challenging, primarily due to various broadening mechanisms including spectral diffusion. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate suppression of spectral diffusion by applying an electrostatic field. We observe both Stark shift tuning of the resonant emission wavelength, and emission linewidth reduction nearly to the homogeneously broadened lifetime limit. Lastly, we find a cubic dependence of the linewidth with respect to temperature at the homogeneous broadening regime. Our results suggest that field tuning in electrostatically gated heterostructures is promising as an approach to control the emission characteristics of h-BN color centers, removing spectral diffusion and providing the energy tunability necessary for integrate of quantum light emission in nanophotonic architectures.