Single-Photon Emission and Quantum Characterization of Zinc Oxide Defects
A. J. Morfa, B. C. Gibson, M. Karg, T. J. Karle, A. D. Greentree, P. Mulvaney, S. Tomljenovic-Hanic:
Nano Letters, 12, 2, 949-954 (2012)
doi: 10.1021/nl204010e
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Room temperature single-photon emission and quantum characterization is reported for isolated defects in zinc oxide. The defects are observed in thin films of both in-house synthesized and commercial zinc oxide nanoparticles. Emission spectra in the red and infrared, second-order photon correlation functions, lifetime measurements, and photon count rates are presented. Both two- and three-state emitters are identified. Sub-band gap absorption and red emission suggest these defects are the zinc vacancy. These results identify a new source of single photons in a readily available wide band gap semiconductor material which has exceptional electrical, optical, and biocompatibility properties.