In current long-distance communications, classical information carried by large numbers of particles is intrinsically robust to some transmission losses but can, therefore, be eavesdropped without notice. On the other hand, quantum communications can provide provable privacy and could make use of entanglement swapping via quantum repeaters to mitigate transmission losses. To this end, considerable effort has been spent over the last few decades toward developing quantum repeaters that combine long-lived quantum memories with a source of indistinguishable single photons. Multiple candidate optical spin qubits in the solid state, including quantum dots, rare-earth ions, and color centers in diamond and silicon carbide (SiC), have been developed. In this perspective, we give a brief overview on recent advances in developing optically active spin qubits in SiC and discuss challenges in applications for quantum repeaters and possible solutions. In view of the development of different material platforms, the perspective of SiC spin qubits in scalable quantum networks is discussed.

Although various defect centers have displayed promise as either quantum sensors, single photon emitters, or light-matter interfaces, the search for an ideal defect with multifunctional ability remains open. In this spirit, we study the dichroic silicon vacancies in silicon carbide that feature two well-distinguishable zero-phonon lines and analyze the quantum properties in their optical emission and spin control. We demonstrate that this center combines 40% optical emission into the zero-phonon lines showing the contrasting difference in optical properties with varying temperature and polarization, and a 100% increase in the fluorescence intensity upon the spin resonance, and long spin coherence time of their spin-$3/2$ ground states up to 0.6 ms. These results single out this defect center as a promising system for spin-based quantum technologies.

A growth process has been investigated for the epitaxial growth of silicon carbide. The technique can simply be described as chemical vapor deposition (CVD) at high temperatures, hence the name high temperature CVD (HTCVD). The growth process however, differs greatly from that of the CVD process due to the significant sublimation and etch rates at the extreme growth temperatures (1800–2300°C). The grown rates obtained with the HTCVD are in the order of several tens of μm/h to 0.5 mm/h. The purity and crystallinity of the growth layers are outstanding showing strong free exciton related photoluminescence.

Vertically well-aligned ZnO nanorods on Si substrates were prepared by a two-step chemical bath deposition method. The structure and optical properties of the grown ZnO nanorods were investigated by Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The results showed that after an annealing treatment at around $500°\text{C}$ in air atmosphere, the crystal structure and optical properties became much better due to the decrease in surface defects. The resonant Raman measurements excited by 351.1 nm not only revealed that the surface defects play a significant role in the as-grown sample, which was supported by low temperature time-resolved photoluminescence measurements, but also suggested that the strong intensity increase in some Raman scatterings was due to both outgoing resonant Raman scattering effect and deep level defect scattering contribution for ZnO nanorods annealed from 500 to $700°\text{C}$ .

We investigate the quenching of the photoluminescence (PL) from the divacancy defect in $4H$-SiC consisting of a nearest-neighbor silicon and carbon vacancies. The quenching occurs only when the PL is excited below certain photon energies (thresholds), which differ for the four different inequivalent divacancy configurations in $4H$-SiC. An accurate theoretical ab initio calculation for the charge-transfer levels of the divacancy shows very good agreement between the position of the (0/−) level with respect to the conduction band for each divacancy configuration and the corresponding experimentally observed threshold, allowing us to associate the PL decay with conversion of the divacancy from neutral to negative charge state due to capture of electrons photoionized from other defects (traps) by the excitation. Electron paramagnetic resonance measurements are conducted in the dark and under excitation similar to that used in the PL experiments and shed light on the possible origin of traps in the different samples. A simple model built on this concept agrees well with the experimentally observed decay curves.