Single G centers in silicon fabricated by co-implantation with carbon and proton

Abstract

We report the fabrication of isolated G centers in silicon with single photon emission at optical telecommunication wavelengths. Our sample is made from a silicon-on-insulator wafer, which is locally implanted with carbon ions and protons at various fluences. Decreasing the implantation fluences enables us to gradually switch from large ensembles to isolated single defects, reaching areal densities of G centers down to ∼0.2 μm-2. Single defect creation is demonstrated by photon antibunching in intensity-correlation experiments, thus establishing our approach as an effective procedure for generating single artificial atoms in silicon for future quantum technologies.