Previously unwelcome, defects are emerging as a new frontier of research, providing a molecular focal point to study the coupling of electrons, excitons, phonons and spin in low-dimensional materials. This opportunity is particularly intriguing in semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes, in which covalently bonding organic functional groups to the sp² carbon lattice can produce tunable sp³ quantum defects that fluoresce brightly in the shortwave IR, emitting pure single photons at room temperature. These novel physical properties have made such synthetic defects, or ‘organic colour centres’, exciting new systems for chemistry, physics, materials science, engineering and quantum technologies. This Review examines progress in this emerging field and presents a unified description of this new family of quantum emitters, as well as providing an outlook of the rapidly expanding research and applications of synthetic defects.

以前不受欢迎的缺陷正在作为一种新的研究前沿出现，它为研究低维材料中电子，激子，声子和自旋的耦合提供了一个分子焦点。在有机单壁碳纳米管中，这种机会尤其令人着迷，其中有机官能团与sp ²碳晶格共价键合可以产生可调节的sp ³在短波红外光中发出明亮荧光的量子缺陷，在室温下发出纯单光子。这些新颖的物理特性使此类合成缺陷或“有机色心”成为化学，物理学，材料科学，工程学和量子技术的令人兴奋的新系统。这篇综述探讨了这一新兴领域的进展，并对这种新型的量子发射器家族进行了统一描述，并对合成缺陷的迅速发展的研究和应用提供了展望。