Toward Ultrafast Tuning and Triggering Single-Photon Electroluminescence of Color Centers in Silicon Carbide

Electrically driven single-photon sources are essential for building compact, scalable, and energy-efficient quantum information devices. Recently, color centers in SiC emerged as promising candidates for such nonclassical light sources. However, very little is known about how to control, dynamically tune, and trigger their single-photon electroluminescence (SPEL), which is required for efficient generation of single photons on demand. Here, we propose and theoretically demonstrate a concept of a gate-tunable single-photon emitting diode (GT-SPED). We show that the SPEL rate of a single silicon antisite defect near stacking faults (Si C -SF center) in the 4H-SiC GT-SPED can be not only dynamically tuned in the range from 0.16 to 40 Mcps but also switched on and off in less than 0.2 ns. This time is shorter than the lifetime of the excited state of the Si C -SF center, which gives the possibility to trigger single-photon generation by applying short electric pulses. The high contrast ratio between the ON and OFF states combined with short characteristic times creates a solid foundation for the development of on-demand high-repetition-rate single-photon sources.