Article abstract


Nature Materials 5, 887 - 892 (2006)
Published online: 22 October 2006 | doi:10.1038/nmat1763

Subject Categories: Semiconductors | Optical, photonic and optoelectronic materials | Nanoscale materials

A gallium nitride single-photon source operating at 200 K

Satoshi Kako1, Charles Santori1,2,3, Katsuyuki Hoshino1,4, Stephan Götzinger2,5, Yoshihisa Yamamoto2 & Yasuhiko Arakawa1


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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  1. Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan
  2. E. L. Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
  3. Present address: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, 1501 Page Mill Rd. MS 1123, Palo Alto, California 94304, USA
  4. Present address: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yamaguchi University, Tokiwadai, Ube, Yamaguchi 755-8611, Japan
  5. Present address: ETH Zurich, Laboratorium für Physikalische Chemie, HCI F220, Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 10, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland

Correspondence to: Satoshi Kako1 e-mail: kako@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Correspondence to: Yasuhiko Arakawa1 e-mail: arakawa@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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