Room-Temperature Single-Photon Emitters

Updated 7 January 2026

Room-temperature single-photon emitters are solid-state quantum systems that produce individual photons (g^(2)(0) < 0.5) for scalable quantum technologies.
Developments in materials like hBN, GaN, SiN, and CNTs demonstrate high brightness, near-ideal photon purity, and efficient integration with photonic circuits.
Integration approaches including wafer-scale thin films, on-chip platforms, and telecom compatibility are driving practical applications in quantum communication and computing.

Room-temperature single-photon emitters (SPEs) are solid-state quantum systems that generate individual photons on demand at ambient temperatures, with second-order autocorrelation at zero delay $g^{(2)}(0) < 0.5$ . These devices are foundational for photonic quantum information processing, integrated quantum photonics, quantum communication, and emerging quantum network architectures. The room-temperature operation removes the need for cryogenics, dramatically increasing the scalability and practicality of SPE-based quantum technologies. The following overview synthesizes developments and technical concepts in the field, with attention to material platforms, emission mechanisms, quantum statistics, control, and device integration, referencing primary advances reported on arXiv.

1. Material Platforms and Physical Mechanisms

Room-temperature SPEs have been demonstrated in a diverse set of systems, with highly distinct defect structures and optical mechanisms:

Hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN): Defect centers, notably the NBVN antisite nitrogen-vacancy, exhibit deep gap states with robust single-photon emission. Carbon-impurity complexes (CBC trimers) created via pulsed laser deposition provide ultra-pure emission with $g^{(2)}(0) = 0.015$ and Debye-Waller factors of 45% (Grosso et al., 2016, Chatterjee et al., 14 May 2025).
Gallium Nitride (GaN): Optically active point defects, particularly near cubic-phase inclusions in wurtzite GaN, enable broadband emission in both the visible and telecom O-band ( $\lambda$ = 1.08–1.34 μm), with high brightness (up to 2.3 MHz) and low multiphoton probability ( $g^{(2)}(0)<0.05$ ) (Zhou et al., 2017, Berhane et al., 2016, Lecaron et al., 4 Apr 2025).
Silicon Nitride (SiN): Nitrogen-rich, amorphous SiN grown on SiO $_2$ supports defect-based SPEs with high brightness ( $>10^5$ cps), narrow emission clusters, and $g^{(2)}(0)<0.2$ (Senichev et al., 2021).
Quantum Dots: Alloyed CdTe $_x$ Se $_{1-x}$ QDs and core/shell CdSe/ZnS nanoplatelets, as well as epitaxial nanocuboids, leverage quantum confinement and engineered trap states to yield near-ideal antibunching ( $g^{(2)}(0) \sim 0.02$ ), deterministic blinking suppression, and high spectral purity (Kaushik et al., 2024, D'Amato et al., 2024, Philbin et al., 2021, Feng et al., 2017).
Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs): Defect-localized excitons (aryl sp $^3$ ) in (6,5) CNTs, with emission red-shifted by 200–300 meV below $E_{11}$ , have been integrated into photonic circuits with room-temperature operation and $g^{(2)}(0)<0.1$ (Deleau et al., 6 Jan 2026).
Diamond NE8 Centers: Strong zero-phonon emission near 794 nm, with sub-2 nm linewidth and high ZPL fraction ( $\sim$ 70%), offers robust room-temperature operation (0708.1878).
Boron Nitride Polytypes: Cubic boron nitride nanocrystals exhibit ZPLs across 500–700 nm with $g^{(2)}(0) \sim 0.2$ and lifetimes $\sim$ 2.75 ns (López-Morales et al., 2019).
Tungsten Disulfide (WS $_2$ ) Oxides: Thermal oxidation of multilayers activates WO $_x$ -embedded defect centers with $g^{(2)}(0)\sim0.15$ (Tran et al., 2016).
Silicon Carbide Tetrapods: Quantum confinement at 3C/4H interfaces yields fully polarized, narrowband, room-temperature SPE (Castelletto et al., 2014).

2. Quantum Optical Properties: Statistics and Purity

The quantum nature of the emission is confirmed by measuring the normalized second-order autocorrelation function $g^{(2)}(\tau) = \langle I(t) I(t+\tau)\rangle/\langle I(t)\rangle^2$ :

Single-photon purity: The room-temperature state-of-the-art is $g^{(2)}(0) = 0.015$ in PLD-grown C-doped hBN thin films (Chatterjee et al., 14 May 2025), and $g^{(2)}(0) = 0.02$ in CdTe $_{0.25}$ Se $_{0.75}$ QDs (Kaushik et al., 2024). Carbon nanotube sources reach $g^{(2)}(0)=0.08$ integrated in photonic circuits (Deleau et al., 6 Jan 2026).
Saturation and count rates: hBN NBVN centers reach $I_{sat} = 1.38 \times 10^7$ counts/s (Grosso et al., 2016), while top CNT PIC-integrated sources achieve $\sim$ 30% out-coupling efficiency.
Blinking and photostability: Deterministic emission (ON-time fractions >95%) has been established in optimized QDs; blinking is heavily suppressed in high-quality hBN, GaN, and SiN samples. Many platforms report photostable operation over hours at room temperature.

3. Spectral Tunability and External Control

A major figure of merit for integrated quantum photonics is the ability to tune the emission frequency for spectral matching and multiplexing:

Strain tuning in hBN: Controlled uniaxial strain enables ZPL shifts up to 6 meV per percent strain, providing a tuning window on par with inhomogeneous broadening. Linear response up to $|\epsilon|=0.6\%$ is observed, with total ZPL shifts of 6 meV (Grosso et al., 2016).
Electrical (Stark effect) tuning: hBN color centers exhibit a room-temperature Stark shift exceeding 30 meV per 0.1 V/nm, one order of magnitude greater than prior color centers. Angle-resolved measurements determine the magnitude and in-plane orientation of the permanent dipole moment ( $|\Delta \mu|=0.65\pm0.04$ D) (Xia et al., 2019).
Integration in dielectric metasurfaces: hBN SPEs coupled to all-dielectric BIC cavities access Rabi splitting $2g\sim4$ meV at room temperature, achieving cooperativity $C>35$ and strong-coupling operation (Do et al., 2022).

4. Device Integration, Scalability, and Circuit Architecture

The transferability, process compatibility, and large-area fabrication of SPEs are essential for scalable quantum photonic circuits:

Thin-film and wafer-scale growth: PLD-grown C-doped hBN films provide uniform, high-purity SPEs across centimeter-scale samples at high density ( $>10^3$ /cm $^2$ ) (Chatterjee et al., 14 May 2025).
On-chip integration: In-situ formation of SPEs in SiN (Senichev et al., 2021), deterministic CNT transfer onto LNOI photonic ICs (Deleau et al., 6 Jan 2026), and site-selective electron beam activation in hBN (Bhunia et al., 2023) enable precise emitter placement and integration with waveguides, cavities, and interferometers.
Telecom compatibility and fiber integration: GaN-based emitters demonstrated in all-fiber plug-and-play architectures at O-band (1.08–1.34 μm) with telecom-grade CWDM channel compatibility (FWHM < 10 nm) and SNR = 16.5 (Lecaron et al., 4 Apr 2025, Zhou et al., 2017).
Electrically driven operation: Hybrid electroluminescence devices with hBN on GaN laser diode facets, driven in pulsed mode, demonstrate on-demand single-photon generation ( $g^{(2)}(0)=0.37$ ) at room temperature (Rodek et al., 2024).

5. Comparison of Performance Metrics Across Platforms

Platform	$g^{(2)}(0)$	Brightness ( $I_{sat}$ )	ZPL FWHM	Tunability	Integration
PLD-C-hBN	0.015	$4.66\times10^5$ cps	3 nm	Strain/E-field	Wafer-scale films
hBN (NBVN)	0.077	$1.38\times10^7$ cps	5–10 nm	Strain	Transferable flakes
GaN, PSS	0.05	up to 2.3 MHz	3–50 nm	Substrate/twist	Telecom/fiber
SiN defects	0.03–0.12	$2.2\times10^5$ cps	10–15 nm	Composition	On-chip
CdTe $_x$ Se $_{1-x}$ QDs	0.02	$1.8\times10^4$ cps/QD	20–30 nm	Alloying	Colloidal
CNT (PIC-integrated)	0.08	30% out-coupling	1 nm (Q=1200)	Cavity/resonance	LNOI PICs
hBN@GaN–LD hybrid	0.19–0.37	$10^5$ – $10^6$ cps	1.5–5 nm	Flake swapping	Electrically driven

Photon antibunching, source brightness, and emission linewidth are all highly competitive with or superior to nitrogen-vacancy centers and many prior QD platforms. PLD-grown carbon-doped hBN and CdTe $_{0.25}$ Se $_{0.75}$ QDs approach near-ideal purity ( $g^{(2)}(0)\sim0.02$ ), with hBN NBVN centers achieving the highest reported brightness at room temperature.

6. Theoretical Models and Physical Design Principles

Defect theory and DFT: First-principles (DFT, GW-BSE) calculations underpin the identification of SPE-active defects (e.g., CBC trimers in hBN, cubic inclusions in GaN, aryl sp $^3$ -bound excitons in CNTs) (Chatterjee et al., 14 May 2025, Zhou et al., 2017, Deleau et al., 6 Jan 2026).
Rate-equation and master equation analysis: Three-level models capture the observed photon statistics in most platforms, incorporating radiative, nonradiative, and shelving state dynamics. Purification techniques such as fast temporal gating suppress residual multi-exciton emission in QDs, yielding ultra-low $g^{(2)}(0)$ under increased power (Feng et al., 2017).
Coherence and oscillator strength: Debye-Waller factors and Huang-Rhys parameters quantify the fraction of emission into the ZPL and the electron–phonon coupling. hBN SPEs in strong-coupling metasurfaces realize cavity quantum electrodynamics regimes ( $g \approx 2$ meV, $C>35$ ) at room temperature (Do et al., 2022).

7. Outlook and Application Prospects

The convergence of deterministic fabrication, record-high purity and brightness, spectral tunability, all-fiber and on-chip integration, and telecom-wavelength operation solidifies room-temperature SPEs as viable sources for photonic quantum technologies:

Scalable quantum networks: High-density, site-selective hBN and SiN sources facilitate the assembly of multi-emitter quantum photonic circuits and QKD arrays.
Telecom photonics: GaN-based and CNT-based SPEs integrated with standard fiber-optic components and on-chip platforms open direct paths to network-scale deployment.
Room-temperature operation: Eliminates the need for cryogenic cooling, enabling mobile and robust devices.

Remaining challenges include the reduction of inhomogeneous broadening (especially in scaled films), further engineering to suppress blinking and spectral diffusion fully, coherent spin control of defect states (notably in GaN and hBN), and deterministic integration with high-Q resonators for enhanced indistinguishability and Purcell effects.

References: (Grosso et al., 2016, Chatterjee et al., 14 May 2025, Zhou et al., 2017, Berhane et al., 2016, Lecaron et al., 4 Apr 2025, Senichev et al., 2021, Kaushik et al., 2024, Deleau et al., 6 Jan 2026, 0708.1878, López-Morales et al., 2019, Do et al., 2022, Do et al., 2022, Xia et al., 2019, Bhunia et al., 2023, Castelletto et al., 2014, Tran et al., 2016, Rodek et al., 2024, Philbin et al., 2021, D'Amato et al., 2024, Zhou et al., 2017, Eng et al., 2024)