Plasmonic enhancement of strain activated room temperature SPEs in few-layer hBN*

Van der Waals materials have boosted the research in integrated photonics due to their unique and useful optical properties and on-chip integration capability. Atomically thin hBN having high-bandgap allows for thermally stable deep defects which host visible and UV single photon emitters (SPEs) which can be engineered by the application of strain. Plasmonics have been employed to enhance these emissions. However, a combined study to optimize the plasmonic enhancement and strain tuning hasn’t been performed. Here, we present an optimized platform for plasmonic-enhanced strain-induced hBN - SPEs supported by FDTD simulations and charge density calculations. We perform scotch tape exfoliation of hBN and confirm monolayers by AFM and Raman spectroscopy. These monolayers are then dry transferred, assisted by PDMS, on a Focused Ion Beam etched plasmonic nanocone array on a Si substrate. We perform PL measurements and isolate emission at 550 nm. We further perform confocal spectroscopy and g²(0) measurements to isolate SPEs. We compare these results with untuned SPEs concerning plasmonic enhancement and strain tuning.