Spin colour centres in SiC as a material platform for sensing and information processing at ambient conditions

Atomic-scale colour centres in bulk and nanocrystalline SiC are promising systems for quantum photonics compatible with fiber optics, quantum information processing and sensing at ambient conditions. Colour centres which acts as stable single photon sources in SiC can be key elements for quantum photonics and communications. It has been shown that there are at least two families of colour centres in SiC with S = 1 and S = 3/2, which have the property of optical alignment of the spin levels even at room temperature and above. The spin state can be initialized, manipulated and readout by means of optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR), level anticrossing and cross-relaxation. Recently, we observed the effects of “hole burning” in the ODMR spectra, which made it possible to narrow the ODMR line by approximately an order of magnitude, which substantially increases the possibilities of technological applications of spin centres