Most single photon emitters in hexagonal boron nitride has been identified as carbon-based defects. These defects, when forming a donor-acceptor pair have spin S≤21. By means of density functional calculations, we show that two non-adjacent carbon substitutional defects of the same type (i.e. CB-CB, and CN-CN), can have a triplet ground state. In particular, one of such defects has a zero phonon line energy of 2.5 eV, and its triplet state is nearly 0.5 eV more stable than its singlet.
@article{arxiv.2209.13735,
title = {Carbon-based single photon emitters in hexagonal boron nitride with triplet ground state},
author = {Fernanda Pinilla and Nicolas Vasquez and Jerónimo R. Maze and Carlos Cárdenas and Francisco Munoz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.13735},
year = {2023}
}