Room-temperature near-infrared silicon carbide nanocrystalline emitters based on optically aligned spin defects
Room-temperature near-infrared silicon carbide nanocrystalline emitters based on optically aligned spin defects
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DOI：
10.1063/1.4904807
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发表时间：
2014-12-15
影响因子：
4
通讯作者：
Astakhov, G. V.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Muzha, A.;Fuchs, F.;Astakhov, G. V.
块体碳化硅是一种非常有前途的生物应用和量子传感材料体系。然而，由于有很大的禁带，它的光学活性超出了活体成像和光纤通信的近红外光谱窗口。在这里，我们报道了碳化硅纳米晶的制备和不同纳米晶组分的分离，尺寸从600 nm到60 nm不等。结构分析显示，最小的纳米晶体进一步碎裂成约10 nm大小的高结晶质量的团簇，由非晶化区分隔。我们使用中子辐照来产生硅空位，展示了近红外光致发光。最后，我们检测了这些硅空位驻留在碳化硅纳米晶中的室温自旋共振。这开启了有趣的前景，不仅可以将它们用作体内发光标记，还可以用作磁场和温度传感器，从而允许监测各种物理、化学和生物过程。(C)2014 AIP出版有限责任公司。
Bulk silicon carbide (SiC) is a very promising material system for bio-applications and quantum sensing. However, its optical activity lies beyond the near infrared spectral window for in-vivo imaging and fiber communications due to a large forbidden energy gap. Here, we report the fabrication of SiC nanocrystals and isolation of different nanocrystal fractions ranged from 600 nm down to 60 nm in size. The structural analysis reveals further fragmentation of the smallest nanocrystals into ca. 10-nm-size clusters of high crystalline quality, separated by amorphization areas. We use neutron irradiation to create silicon vacancies, demonstrating near infrared photoluminescence. Finally, we detect room-temperature spin resonances of these silicon vacancies hosted in SiC nanocrystals. This opens intriguing perspectives to use them not only as in-vivo luminescent markers but also as magnetic field and temperature sensors, allowing for monitoring various physical, chemical, and biological processes. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.