posted on 2021-10-01, 19:10authored byYongliang Chen, Mika T. Westerhausen, Chi Li, Simon White, Carlo Bradac, Avi Bendavid, Milos Toth, Igor Aharonovich, Toan Trong Tran
Quantum
emitters in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) flakes have recently
emerged as a promising platform for nanophotonic and quantum applications.
The solvent-exfoliation process of these flakes has, however, remained
largely unexplored. In this work, we demonstrate a surfactant-assisted
exfoliation technique in an aqueous solution to exfoliate a variety
of commercially available hBN powders into hBN nanoflakes. We show
that the selection of hBN powder greatly impacts the optical properties
of the resultant quantum emitters embedded in exfoliated hBN nanoflakes.
We find that the sample with the best optical performance also shows
the lowest impurity levels in its starting hBN powder. Our study provides
further insight into quantum emitter fabrication in hBN and tailoring
of their optical properties.