Introduction: Quantum technologies could largely benefit from the development of single quantum emitters in sub-micrometric size crystals providing single photons on demand. They can be deterministically integrated in complex nanostructures, such as photonic crystal devices, nano-guides and optical antennas.
Methods, Results, and Discussion
In this work we report on the fabrication and the morphological analysis and an extensive optical characterization of the single-photon emission unprecedented performances of single-photon emission from organic nanocrystals (average size of hundreds nanometers) made of anthracene (Ac) and doped with dibenzoterrylene (DBT) molecules.
The growth procedure is based on reprecipitation, an easy and inexpensive method that we here adapted for a precise tuning of DBT concentration. Investigations on single molecules' photophysics demonstrate a single-photon emission with an uncorrected purity, g2(0), as low as 0.05 and a well-defined dipole orientation parallel to the crystal plane and the substrate. Single-photon emission around 785 nm from individual molecules is bright (with 1.5 MHz detected photon-rate at saturation) and photostable at room temperature. At cryogenic temperatures, 00-zero phonon lines show linewidths close to the lifetime-limited value (about 50 MHz) which are spectrally stable over time scale of hours. Such optical properties in a nanocrystalline environment make the proposed organic nanocrystals a unique single-photon source for integrated photonic quantum technologies.
Preliminary results on the manipulation and integration of the nanocrystals in different polymeric materials are discussed as possible writable system for applications in integrated quantum optics and nanophotonics.
Optical properties of nanostructures , Quantum nano-optics
