An Overview of Carbon-Related Spin Defects in Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond and various defects in silicon carbide (SiC) are some of the most studied spin-defects. These defects are found in host-crystalline 3-D materials. They offer great promise for modern applications, including potential use as qubits, quantum sensors, and much more. Recently, scientists have begun to look carefully at spin defects in 2-D materials. The ultimate goal is to find a material that could host a great spin-defect as a monolayer. Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) boasts a large band gap (~6 eV) and has been shown to be a single-photon emitter at room temperature. Currently, hBN is garnering great attention as a host material for spin-defects.

Zu Lab at Washington University in St. Louis is working on optimization processes for studying the negatively charged boron vacancy defect in hBN. This boron vacancy defect is the most studied in hBN, yet it exhibits poor optical properties and coherence times. Thus, there is ample space for the exploration of other defects in hBN. Zu Lab is heavily considering working with carbon-related defects in hBN. In this presentation, I summarize four of the leading experimental works on carbon-related defects in hBN, with the aim of setting the groundwork for future experiments with hBN at Zu Lab.