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Kavčič A, Podlipec R, Krišelj A, Jelen A, Vella D, Humar M. Intracellular biocompatible hexagonal boron nitride quantum emitters as single-photon sources and barcodes. NANOSCALE 2024; 16:4691-4702. [PMID: 38319598 PMCID: PMC10903403 DOI: 10.1039/d3nr05305a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/07/2024]
Abstract
Color centers in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) have been emerging as a multifunctional platform for various optical applications including quantum information processing, quantum computing and imaging. Simultaneously, due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability hBN is a promising material for biomedical applications. In this work, we demonstrate single-photon emission from hBN color centers embedded inside live cells and their application to cellular barcoding. The generation and internalization of multiple color centers into cells was performed via simple and scalable procedure while keeping the cells unharmed. The emission from live cells was observed as multiple diffraction-limited spots, which exhibited excellent single-photon characteristics with high single-photon purity of 0.1 and superb emission stability without photobleaching or spectral shifts over several hours. Due to different emission wavelengths and peak widths of the color centers, they were employed as barcodes. We term them Quantum Photonic Barcodes (QPBs). Each QPB can exist in one out of 470 possible distinguishable states and a combination of a few QPBs per cell can be used to uniquely tag virtually an unlimited number of cells. The barcodes developed here offer some excellent properties, including ease of production by a single-step procedure, biocompatibility and biodegradability, emission stability, no photobleaching, small size and a huge number of unique barcodes. This work provides a basis for the use of hBN color centers for robust barcoding of cells and due to the single photon emission, presented concepts could in future be extended to quantum-limited sensing and super-resolution imaging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aljaž Kavčič
- Condensed Matter Department, J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
- Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia
| | - Rok Podlipec
- Condensed Matter Department, J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
- Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf e.V., Ion Beam Center, Bautzner Landstrasse 400, 01328 Dresden, Germany
| | - Ana Krišelj
- Condensed Matter Department, J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
| | - Andreja Jelen
- Condensed Matter Department, J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
| | - Daniele Vella
- Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Laboratory for Laser Techniques, University of Ljubljana, Aškerčeva 6, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
| | - Matjaž Humar
- Condensed Matter Department, J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
- Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- CENN Nanocenter, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Calvet L, Guan W, Klemic J, Lee T, Nami M, Sleight J, Stern E, Yosinski S, Zhou C. Editorial for 'focus collection in memory of Prof Mark A Reed'. NANOTECHNOLOGY 2023; 35:110201. [PMID: 38149961 DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ad1541] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 12/28/2023]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Weihua Guan
- Pennsylvania State University, United States of America
| | | | - Takhee Lee
- Seoul National University, Republic of Korea
| | | | | | - Eric Stern
- Selux Diagnostics, United States of America
| | | | - Chongwu Zhou
- University of Southern California, United States of America
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Cholsuk C, Suwanna S, Vogl T. Comprehensive Scheme for Identifying Defects in Solid-State Quantum Systems. J Phys Chem Lett 2023; 14:6564-6571. [PMID: 37458585 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c01475] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/28/2023]
Abstract
A solid-state quantum emitter is a crucial component for optical quantum technologies, ideally with a compatible wavelength for efficient coupling to other components in a quantum network. It is essential to understand fluorescent defects that lead to specific emitters. In this Letter, we employ density functional theory (DFT) to demonstrate the calculations of the complete optical fingerprints of quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride. Our results suggest that instead of comparing a single optical property, like the zero-phonon line energy, multiple properties should be used when comparing simulations to the experiment. Moreover, we apply this approach to predict the suitability of using the emitters in specific quantum applications. We therefore apply DFT calculations to identify quantum emitters with a lower risk of misassignments and a way to design optical quantum systems. Hence, we provide a recipe for classification and generation of universal quantum emitters in future hybrid quantum networks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chanaprom Cholsuk
- Abbe Center of Photonics, Institute of Applied Physics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, 07745 Jena, Germany
| | - Sujin Suwanna
- Optical and Quantum Physics Laboratory, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10400, Thailand
| | - Tobias Vogl
- Abbe Center of Photonics, Institute of Applied Physics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, 07745 Jena, Germany
- Fraunhofer-Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF, 07745 Jena, Germany
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Neumann M, Wei X, Morales-Inostroza L, Song S, Lee SG, Watanabe K, Taniguchi T, Götzinger S, Lee YH. Organic Molecules as Origin of Visible-Range Single Photon Emission from Hexagonal Boron Nitride and Mica. ACS NANO 2023. [PMID: 37276077 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.3c02348] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
The discovery of room-temperature single-photon emitters (SPEs) hosted by two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride (2D hBN) has sparked intense research interest. Although emitters in the vicinity of 2 eV have been studied extensively, their microscopic identity has remained elusive. The discussion of this class of SPEs has centered on point defects in the hBN crystal lattice, but none of the candidate defect structures have been able to capture the great heterogeneity in emitter properties that is observed experimentally. Employing a widely used sample preparation protocol but disentangling several confounding factors, we demonstrate conclusively that heterogeneous single-photon emission at ∼2 eV associated with hBN originates from organic molecules, presumably aromatic fluorophores. The appearance of those SPEs depends critically on the presence of organic processing residues during sample preparation, and emitters formed during heat treatment are not located within the hBN crystal as previously thought, but at the hBN/substrate interface. We further demonstrate that the same class of SPEs can be observed in a different 2D insulator, fluorophlogopite mica.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Neumann
- Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
- Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Xu Wei
- Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
- Department of Energy Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | | | - Seunghyun Song
- Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
- Department of Electronics Engineering, Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul 04310, Republic of Korea
| | - Sung-Gyu Lee
- Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
- Department of Energy Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Kenji Watanabe
- Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan
| | - Takashi Taniguchi
- International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan
| | - Stephan Götzinger
- Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany
- Department of Physics, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), D-91058 Erlangen, Germany
- Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT), Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), D-91052 Erlangen, Germany
| | - Young Hee Lee
- Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
- Department of Energy Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
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Gupta S, Wu W, Huang S, Yakobson BI. Single-Photon Emission from Two-Dimensional Materials, to a Brighter Future. J Phys Chem Lett 2023; 14:3274-3284. [PMID: 36977324 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03674] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Single photons, often called flying qubits, have enormous promise to realize scalable quantum technologies ranging from an unhackable communication network to quantum computers. However, finding an ideal single-photon emitter (SPE) is a great challenge. Recently, two-dimensional (2D) materials have shown great potential as hosts for SPEs that are bright and operate under ambient conditions. This Perspective enumerates the metrics required for an SPE source and highlights that 2D materials, because of reduced dimensionality, exhibit interesting physical effects and satisfy several metrics, making them excellent candidates to host SPEs. The performance of SPE candidates discovered in 2D materials, hexagonal boron nitride and transition metal dichalcogenides, will be assessed based on the metrics, and the remaining challenges will be highlighted. Lastly, strategies to mitigate such challenges by developing design rules to deterministically create SPE sources will be presented.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sunny Gupta
- Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, United States
| | - Wenjing Wu
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
| | - Shengxi Huang
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
| | - Boris I Yakobson
- Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, United States
- Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, United States
- Smalley-Curl Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, United States
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