Stress-engineered single-photon emitters in semiconductor quantum wells

Abstract

The arrayed single-photon sources fabricated by introducing point-like strain perturbations in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted widespread attention due to their nanoscale localization precision, which offers significant advantages in practical applications. However, to date, there has been no related research in quantum wells (QWs), which are also two-dimensional semiconductor materials. Compared to TMDs, QWs possess the unique advantage of a tunable bandgap, which means the wavelength of the single-photon sources fabricated using this method in QWs can cover a broad range. Here, we introduce local bi-axial strain in the QW film and deterministically fabricate single-photon emitters. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating single-photon sources in QWs. This method provides an interesting pathway for exploring practical quantum devices, with the potential to achieve significant breakthroughs in the fields of photonics and quantum information.