Towards III-nitride nano-LED based single photon emitters: Technology and applications

Three alternative device concepts for single photon emitters based on III-nitride nano-LEDs are introduced, their technology reported and the applications they are suitable for presented. The first concept is a vertical device concept and is based on mesoscopic sized (InGa)N nano-pyramids prepared by bottom-up selective area metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. The emission of the emitters is controlled by the composition of the nano-pyramids and their size and can be tuned to the telecommunication wavelength range useable for highly secure data communication. Furthermore, a hybrid device platform was devised which consisted of a top-down etched nano-LED and a mesoscopic sized nanocrystal. The primary emission of the LED is used to induce emission from the crystal. The emission is tunable by the crystal's band gap together with its diameter for crystal sizes at which quantum confinement effects are to be expected. Beside the high device efficiency, the broad range of emission wavelengths achievable characterizes this approach. The third approach employs the top-down formed nano-LED photon emitters for lithography. Here, the emission energy of the emitter is utilized to induce the chemical reaction in the photo resist chosen. Ultimately, only one photon is needed to change one chemical bond. This would then allow a scaling of lithography down to the molecular size. All three photon emitters were integrated into high frequency layouts suitable for DC and HF characterization/operation.