Donor-Acceptor Pairs Near Silicon Carbide Surfaces

Donor-acceptor pairs (DAPs) in wide-bandgap semiconductors are promising platforms for the realization of quantum technologies, due to their optically controllable, long-range dipolar interactions. Specifically, Al-N DAPs in bulk silicon carbide (SiC) have been predicted to enable coherent coupling over distances exceeding 10 nm. However, their practical implementations require an understanding of the properties of these pairs near surfaces and interfaces. Here, using first-principles calculations, we investigate how the presence of surfaces influence the stability and optical properties of Al-N DAPs in SiC, and we show that they retain favorable optical properties comparable to their bulk counterparts, despite a slight increase in electron-phonon coupling. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of surface-defect pairs (SDPs), where an electron-hole pair is generated between a near-surface defect and an occupied surface state located in the bandgap of the material. We show that vanadium-based SDPs near OH-terminated 4H-SiC surfaces exhibit dipoles naturally aligned perpendicular to the surface, greatly enhancing dipole-dipole coupling between SDPs. Our results also reveal significant polarization-dependent modulation in the stimulated emission and photoionization cross sections of V-based SDPs, which are tunable by 2 orders of magnitude via the incident laser's polarization angle. The near-surface defects investigated here provide novel possibilities for the development of hybrid quantum-classical interfaces, as they can be used to mediate information transfer between quantum nodes and integrated photonic circuits.