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A gallium nitride single-photon source operating at 200 K

Nature Materials volume 5, pages 887–892 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Fundamentally secure quantum cryptography has still not seen widespread application owing to the difficulty of generating single photons on demand. Semiconductor quantum-dot structures have recently shown great promise as practical single-photon sources, and devices with integrated optical cavities and electrical-carrier injection have already been demonstrated. However, a significant obstacle for the application of commonly used III–V quantum dots to quantum-information-processing schemes is the requirement of liquid-helium cryogenic temperatures. Epitaxially grown gallium nitride quantum dots embedded in aluminium nitride have the potential for operation at much higher temperatures. Here, we report triggered single-photon emission from gallium nitride quantum dots at temperatures up to 200 K, a temperature easily reachable with thermo-electric cooling. Gallium nitride quantum dots also open a new wavelength region in the blue and near-ultraviolet portions of the spectrum for single-photon sources.

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Figure 1: Typical structure of GaN/AlN self-assembled quantum dots.
Figure 2: Experimental set-up.
Figure 3: Excitation-power dependence.
Figure 4: Photon-correlation measurement under continuous-wave excitation.
Figure 5: Photon-correlation measurement under pulsed excitation.
Figure 6: Biexciton binding energy.

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Acknowledgements

‘Nano-Photonic and Electron Devices Technology’, Focused Research and Development Project for the Realization of the World’s Most Advanced IT Nation, MEXT, supported this work. The authors thank T. Nakaoka and T. Saito for their technical support in the calculations. S.G. acknowledges financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Charles Santori

    Present address: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, 1501 Page Mill Rd. MS 1123, Palo Alto, California, 94304, USA

  2. Katsuyuki Hoshino

    Present address: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yamaguchi University, Tokiwadai, Ube, Yamaguchi, 755-8611, Japan

  3. Stephan Götzinger

    Present address: ETH Zurich, Laboratorium für Physikalische Chemie, HCI F220, Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 10, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 153-8505, Japan

    Satoshi Kako, Charles Santori, Katsuyuki Hoshino & Yasuhiko Arakawa

  2. E. L. Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 94305, USA

    Charles Santori, Stephan Götzinger & Yoshihisa Yamamoto

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  1. Satoshi Kako
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Correspondence to Satoshi Kako or Yasuhiko Arakawa.

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Kako, S., Santori, C., Hoshino, K. et al. A gallium nitride single-photon source operating at 200 K. Nature Mater 5, 887–892 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1763

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