Engineering and application of quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride

Layered van der Waals materials are emerging as compelling two-dimensional platforms for nanophotonics, polaritonics, valleytronics and spintronics, and have the potential to transform applications in sensing, imaging and quantum information processing. Amongst these, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is known to host ultra-bright, room temperature quantum emitters, whose nature is yet to be fully understood. Here we present a summary of the recent advances in our group on controlling and engineering the quantum emission energies in hBN as well as demonstration of using these emitters for various quantum applications. First, we show a CVD technique to grow hBN hosting high density of emitters with emission energies distributed over 20nm range. This is a milestone on continuing the hBN progress in quantum optics as uncontrollable emission wavelength hinders the potential development of hBN-based devices and applications. In addition, we report our recent understanding of photophysical properties and level structure of hBN emitters. In this regard we show a new modality for super resolution imaging based on quantum emitters in hBN which is expandable to other systems. Our findings expand current understanding of quantum emitters in hBN and demonstrate the potential of hBN for the development of hybrid quantum nanophotonic and optoelectronic devices based on two-dimensional materials.