Coupling of deterministically activated quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride to plasmonic surface lattice resonances

Cooperative phenomena stemming from radiation-field-mediated coupling between individual quantum emitters are presently attracting broad interest for on-chip photonic quantum memories and long-range entanglement. Common to these applications is the generation of electromagnetic modes over macroscopic distances. Much research, however, is still needed before such systems can be deployed in the form of practical devices, starting with the investigation of alternate physical platforms. Quantum emitters in two-dimensional (2D) systems provide an intriguing route because these materials can be adapted to arbitrarily shaped substrates to form hybrid systems where emitters are near-field-coupled to suitable optical modes. Here, we report a scalable coupling method allowing color center ensembles in a van der Waals material - hexagonal boron nitride - to couple to a delocalized high quality plasmonic surface lattice resonance. This type of architecture is promising for photonic applications, especially given the ability of the hexagonal boron nitride emitters to operate as single-photon sources at room temperature.