Polarization study of single color centers in aluminum nitride

Abstract

Color centers in wide-bandgap semiconductors are a promising class of solid-state quantum light source, many of which operate at room temperature. We examine a family of color centers in aluminum nitride, which emits close to 620 nm. We present a technique to rapidly map an ensemble of these single photon emitters, identifying all emitters, not just those with absorption dipole parallel to the laser polarization. We demonstrate a fast technique to determine their absorption polarization orientation in the c-plane, finding they are uniformly distributed in orientation, in contrast to many other emitters in crystalline materials.