Remote epitaxy of silicon carbide for quantum nanophotonic crystals

Silicon carbide (SiC ) offers a unique combination of material properties for quantum technologies.

Harnessing these properties simultaneously through an integrated SiC photonics platform enables new milestones for quantum nanophotonics, such as on-chip generation and quantum frequency conversion of light.

Integrated photonic circuits based on Si technology took off only after the commercialization of the single crystal silicon-on-insulator platform.

For SiC, it remains an outstanding challenge to demonstrate thin layers on the insulator, a critical requirement for integrating high-quality color centers into the scalable photonic platform.

In this project, the applicant proposes such a platform for 4H-SiC-on-Insulator which brings color centers into compatibility with industry-standard nanophotonic fabrication techniques.

This will be realized through the remote epitaxy of a thin layer of SiC on graphene-coated SiC substrate and then its transfer onto SiO2. Remote epitaxy allows the registry of substrate crystal to be copied into the overlayer through a thin graphene layer. After the growth, thin epilayer can be easily exfoliated as graphene is not chemically bonded to the substrate.

Building on this platform, the applicant also proposes the complimentary demonstration of nanophotonic cavities and waveguides with embedded single-photon emitters based on spin-active color centers, which are key elements for the development of quantum communication.