About the project
This PhD project will develop reliable and cost-effective on-chip quantum light sources from foundry-compatible 2D materials. Using advanced nanofabrication and spectroscopy, the research will control strain, spin injection, and twist angles to create electrically driven, high-purity entangled single-photon emitter arrays that are crucial for photonic quantum information processing technologies.
Quantum entangled networks of single photons are key to photonic quantum information processing (QIP) technologies [1]. Developing reliable single-photon emitters (SPEs) in scalable materials is therefore important for on-chip quantum photonics. This PhD project aims to create cost-effective, reproducible arrays of SPEs based on atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials.
Layered 2D materials exhibit robust single-photon emission, yet electrically generating entangled photons coupled to spin-polarised carriers remains a major hurdle [2]. Building on our recent advances in fabricating ultraclean 2D materials and metal contacts for spin injection [3], and controlled defect engineering [4], the project will investigate how surface adsorbates, strain, and interlayer twist angle influence electroluminescence from SPEs. The long-term technological goal is to find cost- and energy-effective methods to produce and control quantum emitters on chip.
The student will fabricate optoelectronic devices in the Southampton Nanofabrication Centre, one of UK’s leading university cleanrooms, and will characterise and assess device performance within the Sustainable Electronic Technologies and Quantum, Light and Matter research groups. Research visits to the National Physical Laboratory and the University of Cambridge for spectroscopic characterisation will be encouraged.
-------------------------------
