Engineering Telecom Emission from Silicon Carbide Using Ion Irradiation

Vanadium doping in 4H-SiC is a potential telecommunication quantum emitter. However, controlling the amount of the bright V4+ state in the SiC lattice is a major challenge. In this study, we use high-energy Si ion irradiation to modulate the oxidation state of vanadium in 4H-SiC. The vanadium-doped 4H-SiC at room temperature shows broad emission at 1282.31 nm, which is significantly narrowed to 1.3 nm at 80 K. By varying the Si ion fluence, the intensity from the V4+ state can be maximized without any additional doping. Using temperature-dependent photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy, we unravel the mechanism of charge-state modulation via Fermi level shifting. This strategy for charge-state and Fermi-level modulation can be useful for controlling the optical properties in a deterministic way, which can make it a suitable candidate for realizing wafer-scale quantum emitters and devices.