TY  - JOUR
AU  - Steiner, Corinne
AU  - Rahmel, Rebecca
AU  - Volmer, Frank
AU  - Windisch, Rika
AU  - Janssen, Lars H.
AU  - Pesch, Patricia
AU  - Watanabe, Kenji
AU  - Taniguchi, Takashi
AU  - Libisch, Florian
AU  - Beschoten, Bernd
AU  - Stampfer, Christoph
AU  - Kurzmann, Annika
TI  - Current-induced brightening of vacancy-related emitters in hexagonal boron nitride
JO  - Physical review research
VL  - 7
IS  - 3
SN  - 2643-1564
CY  - College Park, MD
PB  - APS
M1  - FZJ-2026-01632
SP  - L032037
PY  - 2025
AB  - We perform photoluminescence measurements on vacancy-related emitters in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) that are notorious for their low quantum yields. The gating of these emitters via few-layer graphene electrodes reveals a reproducible, gate-dependent brightening of the emitter, which coincides with a change in the direction of the simultaneously measured leakage current across the hBN layers. At the same time, we observe that the relative increase of the brightening effect scales linearly with the intensity of the excitation laser. Both observations can be explained in terms of a photo-assisted electroluminescence effect. Interestingly, emitters can also show the opposite behavior, i.e., a decrease in emitter intensity that depends on the gate leakage current. We explain these two opposing behaviors by different concentrations of donor and acceptor states in the hBN and show that precise control of the doping of hBN is necessary to gain control over the brightness of vacancy-related emitters by electrical means. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of vacancy-related defect emitters in hBN that is necessary to make use of their potential in quantum information processing.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
DO  - DOI:10.1103/cd62-5hq8
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1053955
ER  -