Controlled epitaxy of room-temperature quantum emitters in gallium nitride

The ability to generate quantum light at room temperature on a mature semiconductor platform opens up new possibilities for quantum technologies. Heteroepitaxial growth of gallium nitride on silicon substrates offers the opportunity to leverage existing expertise and wafer-scale manufacturing, to integrate bright quantum emitters in this material inside cavities, diodes and photonic circuits. Until now it has only been possible to grow GaN quantum emitters at uncontrolled depths on sapphire substrates, which is disadvantageous for potential device architectures. Here we report a method to produce GaN quantum emitters by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy at a controlled depth in the crystal through application of a silane treatment and subsequent growth of 3D islands. We demonstrate this process on highly technologically relevant silicon substrates, producing room-temperature quantum emitters with a high Debye-Waller factor and strongly anti-bunched emission.