Non-blinking single-photon emitters in silica.

Freddy T Rabouw,Todd D Krauss,Nicole M B Cogan,Ward Van Der Stam,A Femius Koenderink,Celso De Mello Donega,Anne C Berends,Daniel Vanmaekelbergh

doi:10.1038/srep21187

Abstract

Samples for single-emitter spectroscopy are usually prepared by spin-coating a dilute solution of emitters on a microscope cover slip of silicate based glass (such as quartz). Here, we show that both borosilicate glass and quartz contain intrinsic defect colour centres that fluoresce when excited at 532 nm. In a microscope image the defect emission is indistinguishable from spin-coated emitters. The emission spectrum is characterised by multiple peaks with the main peak between 2.05 and 2.20 eV, most likely due to coupling to a silica vibration with an energy that varies between 160 and 180 meV. The defects are single-photon emitters, do not blink, and have photoluminescence lifetimes of a few nanoseconds. Photoluminescence from such defects may previously have been misinterpreted as originating from single nanocrystal quantum dots.

Highlights

Samples for single-emitter spectroscopy are usually prepared by spin-coating a dilute solution of emitters on a microscope cover slip of silicate based glass
Samples for single molecule photoluminescence spectroscopy are usually prepared by spin-coating a dilute solution of the emitters from a liquid or polymer solution onto a glass or quartz cover slip[2,6,7,9,10,11,12,15,16]
We show that microscope cover slips of silica, commonly used for single-emitter studies, contain intrinsic single-photon emitting centres

Summary

Introduction

Samples for single-emitter spectroscopy are usually prepared by spin-coating a dilute solution of emitters on a microscope cover slip of silicate based glass (such as quartz). Single-photon emitters with very similar characteristics have been observed before in several studies[6,7,9,10,12,13] where silica cover slips were used as a substrate to spin-coat the sample. While in these studies the PL was ascribed to nanocrystals (of various types), our results imply that it may have originated from luminescent centres intrinsic to the silica substrate

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion