Bright single-photon electroluminescence of a single SiV center in a diamond diode

Abstract

Electrically-driven single-photon sources (SPSs) are required for the scalable quantum technologies. Color centers in diamond emerged as attractive candidates for room-temperature SPSs. SiV centers are especially attractive due to their outstanding emission properties. However, although electroluminescence from SiV centers has been demonstrated, the single-photon electroluminescence (SPEL) from a single center has not been achieved due to the low SPEL rate. Here, we explain why the SPEL rate in recent experiments was low to be resolved and design a diamond p-i-n diode with a SiV center and show how to achieve an SPEL rate of more than 900000 photons/s.