Design of photonic microcavities in hexagonal boron nitride.

Sejeong Kim,Milos Toth,Igor Aharonovich

doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.12

Abstract

We propose and design photonic crystal cavities (PCCs) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) for diverse photonic and quantum applications. Two dimensional (2D) hBN flakes contain quantum emitters which are ultra-bright and photostable at room temperature. To achieve optimal coupling of these emitters to optical resonators, fabrication of cavities from hBN is therefore required to maximize the overlap between cavity optical modes and the emitters. Here, we design 2D and 1D PCCs using anisotropic indices of hBN. The influence of underlying substrates and material absorption are investigated, and spontaneous emission rate enhancements are calculated. Our results are promising for future quantum photonic experiments with hBN.

Highlights

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has recently emerged as an interesting platform for nanophotonics
Hexagonal boron nitride has recently emerged as an interesting platform for nanophotonics. This is mainly due to its promising hyperbolic properties [1,2] as well as the ability to host a range of single photon emitters (SPEs) that are of great interest for a myriad of nanophotonics and quantum photonic applications [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
The hybrid approach is easier from the fabrication point of view but is inherently limited by the fact that the electric field maxima of optical modes are situated within the cavities, and optimal coupling remains a challenge

Summary

Introduction

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has recently emerged as an interesting platform for nanophotonics. To further study light matter interactions based on the hBN SPEs, and to realize integrated nanophotonics systems, coupling of the emitters to optical cavities is essential [11,12,13,14,15]. We further optimize the structures and model 1D nanobeam photonic crystals that exhibit a Q-factor in excess of ≈20,000.

Results

Conclusion