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Defects in wide band gap crystals have emerged as a promising platform for hosting color centers that enable quantum photonic applications. Among these, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), a van der Waals material, stands out for its ability to be integrated into heterostructures, enabling unconventional charge injection mechanisms that bypass the need for p–n junctions. This advancement allows for the electrical excitation of hBN color centers deep inside the large hBN band gap, which has seen rapid progress in recent developments. Here, we fabricate hBN electroluminescence (EL) devices that generate narrowband color centers suitable for electrical excitation. The color centers are localized to tunneling current hotspots within the hBN flake, which are engineered during device fabrication. We outline the optimal conditions for device operation and color center stability, focusing on minimizing background emission and ensuring prolonged operation. Our findings follow up on the existing literature and mark a step forward toward the integration of hBN-based color centers into quantum photonic technologies.

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• In Copyright
  

  This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c01642

Keyword: Hexagonal boron nitride, Color center, Electroluminescence

Date published: 2025-04-23

Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)

Journal:

• ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (ISSN: 19448252) vol. 17 issue. 16 p. 24129-24136

Funding:

• Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
• Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea IITP-2023-RS2022-00164799
• National Research Foundation of Korea NRF-2023R1A2C2007998
• Australian Research Council CE200100010
• Australian Research Council DP240103127
• Australian Research Council FT220100053
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 21H05233
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 23H02052
• Institute for Basic Science IBS-R034-D1
• Brain Korea 21 FOUR project for Education and research centre for future materials F21YY7105002

Manuscript type: Author's version (Accepted manuscript)

MDR DOI:

First published URL: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c01642

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Updated at: 2026-07-28 15:51:08 +0900

Published on MDR: 2026-07-28 18:26:55 +0900