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Scientific Reports

Photon extraction enhancement of praseodymium ions in gallium nitride nanopillars

Shin Sato, Shuo Li, Andrew D. Greentree, Manato Deki, Tomoaki Nishimura, Hirotaka Watanabe, Shugo Nitta, Yoshio Honda, Hiroshi Amano, Brant C. Gibson, Takeshi Ohshima

Published Dec 8, 2022• 10 citations

Abstract

Abstract Lanthanoid-doped Gallium Nitride (GaN) integrated into nanophotonic technologies is a promising candidate for room-temperature quantum photon sources for quantum technology applications. We manufactured praseodymium (Pr)-doped GaN nanopillars of varying size, and showed significantly enhanced room-temperature photon extraction efficiency compared to unstructured Pr-doped GaN. Implanted Pr ions in GaN show two main emission peaks at 650.3 nm and 651.8 nm which are attributed to 3P0-3F2 transition in the 4f-shell. The maximum observed enhancement ratio was 23.5 for 200 nm diameter circular pillars, which can be divided into the emitted photon extraction enhancement by a factor of 4.5 and the photon collection enhancement by a factor of 5.2. The enhancement mechanism is explained by the eigenmode resonance inside the nanopillar. Our study provides a pathway for Lanthanoid-doped GaN nano/micro-scale photon emitters and quantum technology applications.

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-25522-6

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Abstract We demonstrate the optical coupling of implanted neodymium (Nd) ions in a photonic crystal (PhC)-L3 cavity on GaN at RT. The structure of the PhC-L3 cavity is designed by the electromagnetic field simulation to enhance the 4 F 3/2–4 I 9/2 and 4 F 3/2–4 I 11/2 transitions (916 and 1107 nm) in Nd3+. The highest enhancement ratio of 20-fold is achieved under our measurement conditions by the enhancement of spontaneous emission rate due to the Purcell effect in addition to the improvement of light collection efficiency. These results pave the way for the development of Ln-doped GaN based quantum light–matter interface and nanophotonics.

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