Nanoscale resolved mapping of the dipole emission of hBN color centers with a scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope

The experimental data presented is related to the article: I. Niehues, D. Wigger, K. Kaltenecker, A. Klein-Hitpass, P. Roelli, A.K. Dąbrowska, K. Ludwiczak, P. Tatarczak, J.O. Becker, R. Schmidt, M. Schnell, J. Binder, A. Wysmołek, and R. Hillenbrand (2025) Nanoscale resolved mapping of the dipole emission of hBN color centers with a scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope. Nanophotonics 14(3): 335–342, https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2024-0554Color centers in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) are promising candidates as quantum light sources for future technologies. In this work, we utilize a scattering-type near-field optical microscope (s-SNOM) to study the photoluminescence (PL) emission characteristics of such quantum emitters in metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy grown hBN. On the one hand, we demonstrate direct near-field optical excitation and emission through interaction with the nanofocus of the tip resulting in a subdiffraction limited tip-enhanced PL hotspot. On the other hand, we show that indirect excitation and emission via scattering from the tip significantly increases the recorded PL intensity. This demonstrates that the tip-assisted PL (TAPL) process effiently guides the generated light to the detector. We apply the TAPL method to map the in-plane dipole orientations of the hBN color centers on the nanoscale. This work promotes the widely available s-SNOM approach to applications in the quantum domain including characterization and optical control.Files:Fig. 1:The file contains photoluminescence (PL) measurement data of a single color center obtained with an AFM tip.Fig. 2:The file includes PL maps of two different emitters measured in near-field scans.Fig. 3:The file includes a PL scan of multiple color centers within a 6 μm × 6 μm region, along with PL spectra of color centers measured with extended integration times of 5 s.Fig. 4:The file contains PL intensity maps (integrated peak area from fit) for different angles between illumination direction.