Congrats to Kamyar for Defending his Thesis!

Solid-state Quantum Emitters (SQEs) are an indispensable resource for quantum photonic platforms. These technologies can be made into compact and efficient modules by leveraging the mature silicon photonics ecosystem; however, suitable quantum emitters have not yet been demonstrated in silicon-based photonics. The development of CMOS-compatible, high-quality quantum emitters capable of on-demand single-photon generation could revolutionize the field of quantum information in the same way the laser has transformed global communications and high-speed data networks.

Two key requirements are necessary to address this challenge: (1) identification of emitters capable of high purity, high indistinguishability, and bright single-photon generation, and (2) the deterministic integration and alignment of such emitters with silicon-based photonic microcavities to achieve efficient on-chip emission. Many platforms have been developed to address the first challenge, including quantum dots, diamond color centers, and defects in two-dimensional materials . The second challenge has been more difficult to overcome and calls for a hetero-integrated approach that integrates materials hosting high-quality emitters into the silicon-photonic fabrication flow.

In recent years, the discovery of defect-based SQEs in 2D materials, most notably WSe2 and h-BN, has given a boost to this effort. In this talk, I will discuss our experiments that shed light on origin of SQEs and resulted in a novel method to site-specifically engineer SQEs in 2D materials with 50 nm spatial resolution, near unity yield, over 95% purity, and record-breaking working temperatures, Next, I'll discuss several advances in photonic integration that resulted in the development of a 2D-compatible photonic platform capable of >46% on-chip single-photon collection efficiency and > 95% single-photon purity at room temperature. This is the first demonstration of microcavity integration of quantum emitters in two-dimensional material emitters with silicon-based photonics, which improved the on-chip coupling efficiency by an order-of-magnitude over previous demonstrations.

Finally, I will provide an outlook to the future of this platform and specifically our progress to integrate our cavity-coupled SQEs into diode structures enabling electrical triggering of single-photons and prototyping the first on-chip quantum light emitting device (qLED).