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Single-photon emitters serve as building blocks for many emerging concepts in quantum photonics. The recent identification of bright, tunable and stable emitters in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has opened the door to quantum platforms operating across the infrared to ultraviolet spectrum. Although it is widely acknowledged that defects are responsible for single-photon emitters in hBN, crucial details regarding their origin, electronic levels and orbital involvement remain unknown. Here we employ a combination of resonant inelastic X-ray scattering and photoluminescence spectroscopy in defective hBN, unveiling an elementary excitation at 285 meV that gives rise to a plethora of harmonics correlated with single-photon emitters. We discuss the importance of N π* anti-bonding orbitals in shaping the electronic states of the emitters. The discovery of elementary excitations in hBN provides fundamental insights into quantum emission in low-dimensional materials, paving the way for future investigations in other platforms.

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• http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
  

Keyword: Single-photon emitters, Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering

Date published: 2024-04-23

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Journal:

• Nature Materials (ISSN: 14764660) vol. 23 issue. 9 p. 1230-1236

Funding:

• DOE | LDRD | Brookhaven National Laboratory
• DOE | Office of Science
• DOE | SC | Basic Energy Sciences
• CUNY | Graduate Center

Manuscript type: Author's version (Accepted manuscript)

MDR DOI:

First published URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-01866-4

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Updated at: 2025-08-04 16:30:37 +0900

Published on MDR: 2025-08-04 16:17:58 +0900