Deterministic positioning accuracy of B centers in hBN by electron irradiation
Abstract
Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a promising material platform for quantum technologies, enabling both the realization of nanophotonic devices and the hosting of point defects that act as high-quality single-photon emitters (SPEs). Among these defects, B centers, which reproducibly emit at 436 nm, can be generated individually at predefined positions using electron beam irradiation, a crucial capability for top-down quantum photonics. Yet, the spatial accuracy of emitter creation strongly conditions the potential applications. Here, we generate arrays of individual B centers in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with in-situ cathodoluminescence (CL) monitoring. We characterize the sources of random deviations from the target positions to identify the limitations to their deterministic positioning. In particular, we measure the distance between the electron beam and the emitter at the moment the emitter is created based on CL mapping. This approach provides a direct estimation of the spatial extent of the beam-emitter interaction. We find this contribution to be the main constraint to the emitter fabrication accuracy, yielding a standard deviation of 27 nm. Additional contributions, primarily from the finite density of UV-emitting carbon dimer precursors, increase the overall positional standard deviation to 40 nm. Our results highlight the possible improvements to the B center creation technique to reach sub-10 nm accuracy.
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BibTeX
@misc{marcos2026deterministic,
title = {{Deterministic positioning accuracy of B centers in hBN by electron irradiation}},
author = {A. Núñez Marcos and C. Arnold and J. Barjon and S. Buil and J. -P. Hermier and A. Delteil},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.16468},
eprint = {2610.16468},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.16468},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Deterministic positioning accuracy of B centers in hBN by electron irradiation
AU - A. Núñez Marcos
AU - C. Arnold
AU - J. Barjon
AU - S. Buil
AU - J. -P. Hermier
AU - A. Delteil
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.16468
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.16468
AB - Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a promising material platform for quantum technologies, enabling both the realization of nanophotonic devices and the hosting of point defects that act as high-quality single-photon emitters (SPEs). Among these defects, B centers, which reproducibly emit at 436 nm, can be generated individually at predefined positions using electron beam irradiation, a crucial capability for top-down quantum photonics. Yet, the spatial accuracy of emitter creation strongly conditions the potential applications. Here, we generate arrays of individual B centers in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with in-situ cathodoluminescence (CL) monitoring. We characterize the sources of random deviations from the target positions to identify the limitations to their deterministic positioning. In particular, we measure the distance between the electron beam and the emitter at the moment the emitter is created based on CL mapping. This approach provides a direct estimation of the spatial extent of the beam-emitter interaction. We find this contribution to be the main constraint to the emitter fabrication accuracy, yielding a standard deviation of 27 nm. Additional contributions, primarily from the finite density of UV-emitting carbon dimer precursors, increase the overall positional standard deviation to 40 nm. Our results highlight the possible improvements to the B center creation technique to reach sub-10 nm accuracy.
ER -