High-Density, Localized Quantum Emitters in Strained 2D Semiconductors

Two-dimensional chalcogenide semiconductors have recently emerged as a host material for quantum emitters of single photons. While several reports on defect-and strain-induced single-photon emission from 2D chalcogenides exist, a bottom-up, lithography-free approach to producing a high density of emitters remains elusive. Further, the physical properties of quantum emission in the case of strained 2D semiconductors are far from being understood. Here, we demonstrate a bottom-up, scalable, and lithography-free approach for creating large areas of localized emitters with high density (similar to 150 emitters/um(2)) in a WSe2 monolayer. We induce strain inside the WSe2 monolayer with high spatial density by conformally placing the WS(e)2 monolayer over a uniform array of Pt nanoparticles with a size of 10 nm. Cryogenic, time-resolved, and gate-tunable luminescence measurements combined with near-field luminescence spectroscopy suggest the formation of localized states in strained regions that emit single photons with a high spatial density. Our approach of using a metal nanoparticle array to generate a high density of strained quantum emitters will be applied to scalable, tunable, and versatile quantum light sources.