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arXiv:1612.02228 · IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Operation of Multipixel Radio-Frequency Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector Arrays

Steffen Doerner, Artem Kuzmin, S. Wünsch, Ilya Charaev, Michael Siegel

Published Dec 9, 2016• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The concept of the radio-frequency superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (RF-SNSPD) allows frequency-division multiplexing of the bias and readout lines of several SNSPDs. Using this method, a multi-pixel array can be operated by only one feed line. Consequently, the system complexity as well as the heat load is significantly reduced. To allocate many pixels into a small bandwidth the quality factor of each device is crucial. In this paper, we present an improved RF-SNSPD design. This new design enables a simple tuning of the quality factor as well as the resonant frequency. With a two-pixel device we have demonstrated the operation without crosstalk between the detectors and showed the time, spatial, and photon number resolution. Thereby a single pixel requires only a bandwidth of 14 MHz.

DOI
10.1109/tasc.2016.2637875

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We propose a new operation principle for superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) enabling an efficient frequency-division multiplexing of the bias and readout signals of a large multipixel detector array. The SNSPD is part of a resonant circuit, and the microwave signal inside the device is used to bias the detector close to the critical state. Hence, an n×m pixel SNSPD array requires only two coaxial cables from room temperature to the detector ambient temperature of 4.2 K. We show the microwave characterization and single-photon response of such devices and compare the detector efficiencies with conventional dc-biased SNSPDs. Furthermore, we demonstrate the feasibility of array applications with the new operation mode in a two-pixel proof-of-principle device.
We demonstrate a 16-pixel array of microwave-current driven superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors with an integrated and scalable frequency-division multiplexing architecture, which reduces the required number of bias and readout lines to a single microwave feed line. The electrical behavior of the photon-sensitive nanowires, embedded in a resonant circuit, as well as the optical performance and timing jitter of the single detectors is discussed. Besides the single pixel measurements, we also demonstrate the operation of a 16-pixel array with a temporal, spatial, and photon-number resolution.
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Since their inception, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors have been enabling quantum optical applications and the rise of the photonic quantum industry. The evolution in the detector design and read-out strategies has led to the introduction of devices with a plurality of independent pixels, which have been able to operate with high system detection efficiency at high speed while also supporting photon number resolution capabilities. However, this comes at the cost of a complex readout that requires one coaxial cable for each pixel of the array. Here, we report a 28-pixel SNSPD with a dedicated parallel architecture that, while maintaining a simple readout with a single coaxial line, enables the detector to operate at high speed with low-performance degradation. The device shows a maximum single-photon efficiency of 88% and is able to maintain its efficiency above 50%, coupled with a timing jitter lower than 80 ps, up to a detection rate of 200 million counts per second. The detector also provides state-of-the-art photon-number-resolving performances with a 2-photon efficiency of 75% and a 3-photon efficiency of 62%.