Optically addressable spins associated with defects in wide-bandgap semiconductors are versatile platforms for quantum information processing and nanoscale sensing, where spin-dependent inter-system crossing (ISC) transitions facilitate optical spin initialization and readout. Recently, the van der Waals material hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has emerged as a robust host for quantum emitters (QEs), but spin-related effects have yet to be observed. Here, we report room-temperature observations of strongly anisotropic photoluminescence (PL) patterns as a function of applied magnetic field for select QEs in h-BN. Field-dependent variations in the steady-state PL and photon emission statistics are consistent with an electronic model featuring a spin-dependent ISC between triplet and singlet manifolds, indicating that optically-addressable spin defects are present in h-BN − a versatile two-dimensional material promising efficient photon extraction, atom-scale engineering, and the realization of spin-based quantum technologies using van der Waals heterostructures.
@article{arxiv.1804.09061,
title = {Spin-Dependent Quantum Emission in Hexagonal Boron Nitride at Room Temperature},
author = {Annemarie L. Exarhos and David A. Hopper and Raj N. Patel and Marcus W. Doherty and Lee C. Bassett},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.09061},
year = {2019}
}