Engineering telecom single-photon emitters in silicon for scalable quantum photonics

We create and isolate single-photon emitters with a high brightness approaching 10(5) counts per second in commercial silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. The emission occurs in the infrared spectral range with a spectrally narrow zero phonon line in the telecom O-band and shows a high photostability even after days of continuous operation. The origin of the emitters is attributed to one of the carbon-related color centers in silicon, the so-called G center, allowing purification with the C-12 and Si-28 isotopes. Furthermore, we envision a concept of a highly-coherent scalable quantum photonic platform, where single-photon sources, waveguides and detectors are integrated on an SOI chip. Our results provide a route towards the implementation of quantum processors, repeaters and sensors compatible with the present-day silicon technology. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement