4H-SiC Tunneling Light Emitter as a Light-Source for Quantum Applications

Abstract:

We report a light emitter based on a 4H-SiC lateral Zener diode that is operated under reverse bias in the quantum tunneling regime. Wide bandwidth white light emission with a peak wavelength of 492 nm corresponding to the transition between the nitrogen donor state and the aluminum acceptor state and a full width half maximum breadth of 303 nm at room temperature is shown. The peak breadth can be attributed to the relative shift of the acceptor and donor levels in the high electric field within the space charge region under reverse bias. At the wavelength of 730 nm, which is commonly used for off-resonant excitation of silicon vacancy defects, the emitter achieves 43.1% of its peak intensity. The emitter shows no blue light peak corresponding to the transition between the donor level of nitrogen and the valence band at 391 nm, such as the LED spectrum under forward bias of the same diode does.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 1056)
• Pages: 27-32
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-zW5TBc
• Online since: May 2026
• Authors: Jan Frederik Dick*, Samuel Ultsch, Mathias Rommel, Jörg Schulze
• Keywords: Light Emitter, Light-Source, Off-Resonant Excitation, Quantum Tunneling, Silicon Vacancy, Tunneling Enhanced Emission

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