Plasmonic Nanocavity to Boost Single Photon Emission from Defects in Thin Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Abstract: Efficient and compact single photon emission platforms operating at room temperature with ultrafast speed and high brightness will be fundamental components of the emerging quantum communications and computing fields. However, so far, it is very challenging to design practical deterministic single photon emitters based on nanoscale solid-state materials that meet the fast emission rate and strong brightness demands. Here, a solution is provided to this longstanding problem by using metallic nanocavities integrated with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) flakes with defects acting as nanoscale single photon emitters (SPEs) at room temperature. The presented hybrid nanophotonic structure creates a rapid speedup and large enhancement in single photon emission at room temperature. Hence, the nonclassical light emission performance is substantially improved compared to plain hBN flakes and hBN on gold-layered structures without nanocavity. Extensive theoretical calculations are also performed to accurately model the new hybrid nanophotonic system and prove that the incorporation of plasmonic nanocavity is key to efficient SPE performance. The proposed quantum nanocavity single photon source is expected to be an element of paramount importance to the envisioned room-temperature integrated quantum photonic networks.