Optically active spin defects in heteropolytypic silicon carbide structures

Silicon carbide (SiC) is a well-known semiconducting material with applications in high-power electronics that hosts several optically active defect species, or color centers. There are numerous polytypes of SiC, providing opportunities to engineer defect properties relevant for specific quantum sensing and communications applications. Because the optical and spin transition energy levels of these color centers depend on local lattice symmetries and charge environments, their properties are modified by the presence of localized and extended crystallographic defects with the material.

            In this work, we explore cubic-phase inclusions in commercial 4H-SiC that span hundreds of microns. The large scale of these extended crystallographic defects makes it possible to systematically study how they affect the properties of the nearby color centers, as well as explore modified charge dynamics in the presence of their heterointerfaces. This work combines bulk and atomic-resolution electron microscopy techniques, optical and spin characterization of point defects, and first principles calculations to evaluate the viability of this materials system for quantum information science applications.