Understanding the photonics of single color-center emission in a high-indexed nano-pillar

In the recent past, high-refractive index nano- and micropillars have been widely used for significantly enhancing the fluorescence properties of quantum emitters embedded within the pillar. However, a complete study of the electromagnetic dynamics and nanophotonics of single-photon emission inside the high-refractive index nanopillars is currently missing. In order to design nano- and micropillars for the fluorescence enhancement of embedded quantum emitters, it is essential to understand their emission dynamics once single-photon emitters are embedded inside them. Here, both analytically and computationally, we study the electromagnetic dynamics of the nitrogen-vacancy (N_CV_Si) centers in silicon-carbide (SiC) micro-pillars due to their characteristic emission in the optical O-band telecommunication region (1260–1360 nm). For efficient micro-pillar design, the fluorescence enhancement was determined to increase by more than two orders of magnitude with the collection efficiency reaching about 40% from a very low value of ∼0.5% in bulk SiC. Presently, the enhancement achieved experimentally is limited to a factor of around 10–20. Our results are, therefore, expected to accelerate research in the field quantum emitters coupling to micro-pillars or micro-pillar photonics.