The study of QD-like emission from deep emission centers in semiconductor has become an important topic in the general framework of quantum information processing and nanoscale sensing, the emblematic emission center being the N-V defect in diamonds. Recently, research has been conducted to evaluate the potential of other defects in various materials, for instance in GaN and BN. Oddly, not much is known on color centers in AlN, despite the many assets of this material : it can be epitaxially deposited, high quality bulk substrates are available, it can be processed as high quality factor microcavities.
We propose in this 12 months post-doc to explore the optical properties of deep luminescing centers in AlN. We will study by microphotoluminescence (either cw or time-resolved) various types of AlN : thin AlN grown on Si (possibly processed as membranes), thick AlN grown on sapphire, ensembles and single AlN nanowires.