Nanophotonics with Coherent and Temporally Controlled Single Photon Light Emission

Advances in synthesis of excitonic materials and color-centers are giving rise to sources of coherent and single photon light emission that can enable new types of nanophotonic systems. Recent developments in color center-based single photon sources have demonstrated homogeneously broadened and electrically tunable single photon emission from color centers in hexagonal boron nitride. These color centers are optical frequency single photon emitters with linewidths of <100 MHz and are wavelength tunable over a >400 GHz frequency range under electrical gating, with precisely determined dipole orientation. I will discuss the implications of these results for electrical control of single photon emission, in which we can envision nanophotonic structures for tailoring the temporal and spectral characteristics of color centers and excitonic emitters to enable indistinguishability and photon correlation for applications such as emitter-emitter entanglement and quasi-noiseless amplification of weak optical signals by single photon addition to thermal light sources.