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arXiv:1911.01652

IR- and visible- light single photon detection in superconducting $MgB_{2}$ nanowires

Serguei Cherednichenko, Narendra Acharya, Evgenii Novoselov, Vladimir Drakinskiy

Published Nov 5, 2019• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

State-of-the-art Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors based on low-Tc materials reach 100% quantum efficiency. However, the response time is limited to >1-10 ns. Recently, it has been shown that due to a much lower kinetic inductance, a 100 ps response rate can be achieved in 120 $μ$m-long $MgB_{2}$ nanowires. In this work, we demonstrate experimentally that such $MgB_{2}$ nanowires function as single-photon detectors for both visible ($λ$= 630 nm) and infrared ($λ$= 1550 nm) photons when biased close to the critical current, with a dark count rate of <10 cps. $MgB_{2}$ photodetectors over-perform NbN SNSPDs in speed by at least an order of magnitude for similar nanowire lengths. Such photodetectors offer a platform for single-photon detectors with a long thought-after combination of a large detector area and a response rate of up to 10 GHz with a single readout line.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1911.01652

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State-of-the-art Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors based on low-Tc materials reach 100% quantum efficiency. However, the response time is limited to >1-10 ns. Recently, it has been shown that due to a much lower kinetic inductance, a 100 ps response rate can be achieved in 120 μμμm-long MgB2MgB_{2}MgB2​ nanowires. In this work, we demonstrate experimentally that such MgB2MgB_{2}MgB2​ nanowires function as single-photon detectors for both visible (λλλ= 630 nm) and infrared (λλλ= 1550 nm) photons when biased close to the critical current, with a dark count rate of <10 cps. MgB2MgB_{2}MgB2​ photodetectors over-perform NbN SNSPDs in speed by at least an order of magnitude for similar nanowire lengths. Such photodetectors offer a platform for single-photon detectors with a long thought-after combination of a large detector area and a response rate of up to 10 GHz with a single readout line.
Abstract Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) are key building blocks for photonic quantum technologies due to their ability to detect single photons with ultra-high efficiency, low dark counts and fast temporal resolution. Superconducting materials exhibiting high uniformity, large absorption cross-section and atomic-scale thickness are desirable to extend single-photon detection from the near-infrared up to the terahertz regime, where existing material choices are especially constrained. Substrate independence would further open the way to integrating detectors onto functional materials and heterostructures, enhancing performance and enabling proximal readout of a wide range of individual excitations. Here, we pattern the prototypical two-dimensional superconductor niobium diselenide (NbSe 2 ) into few-layer nanowires less than 100 nm wide and demonstrate single-photon detection at 780 nm and 1550 nm. At the same time, the dark-count rate remains below 1 Hz up to the switching current and we achieve a timing jitter below 50 ps. We estimate via a diffusive hot-spot model that materials and geometric parameters would allow a theoretical cut-off wavelength in the millimetre range, assuming state-of-the-art device parameters. Our results open up routes toward quantum-limited detectors integrated into quantum-photonic circuits and quantum devices, with the potential for novel detection capabilities and unprecedented energy sensitivity.
We develop single-photon detectors comprising single-mode fiber-coupled superconducting nanowires, with high system detection efficiencies at a wavelength of 940 nm. The detector comprises a 6.5-nm-thick, 110-nm-wide NbN nanowire meander fabricated onto a Si substrate with a distributed Bragg reflector for enhancing the optical absorptance. We demonstrate that, via the design of a low filling factor (1/3) and active area (Φ = 10 μm), the system reaches a detection efficiency of ∼60% with a dark count rate of 10 Hz, a recovery time <12 ns, and a timing jitter of ∼50 ps.
Nanowire superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPDs) consist of a superconducting wire of nanoscale cross-section [1], typically 4×100 nm2. A current close to the device critical current renders the nanowire sensitive to single photons. SSPDs are known for their high efficiency, low jitter, low dark count rate and fast reset time. An important challenge for future application of SSPDs is to extend the useful wavelength range towards the infrared without comprising detector speed or dark count rate. To this end, we explore optical designs with wider nanowires that utilize efficient detection of single photons at the edge of the nanowire. Silicon nanowires on top of a NbN nanowire increase both the calculated total absorption and the internal detection efficiency significantly compared to a standard meandering wire geometry.
Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) play a pivotal role in infrared single-photon-detection applications owing to their free-running mode, near-unity detection efficiency, and excellent time resolution. However, conventional niobium nitride- (NbN) SNSPDs often have a trade-off between optimal detection efficiency and time resolution. We herein demonstrate NbN SNSPDs in the combination of high efficiency and time resolution by using the helium-ion-irradiated film of 10 nm and a homemade cryogenic amplifier to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The proposed 18-μm-diameter device operated at 850 mK shows a saturated system detection efficiency of ∼90.5% at 1550 nm wavelength with a dark count rate below 50 counts per second (cps), and minimum system timing jitter of ∼14.7 ps. Meanwhile, the recovery time is 21.2 ns owing to its lower kinetic inductance. The time-of-flight light detection and ranging with this device was further carried out indoors, which demonstrates a submillimeter (<0.5 mm) depth resolution, as well as good depth and intensity reconstruction of a low-signature object even under the dwell time of 0.5 ms. It indicates that our device has a great advantage and potential in high-time-resolution and weak-signal-detection applications, such as real-time imaging, fluorescence lifetime detection, and remote laser sensing.
Superconducting single photons detectors (SSPDs) have emerged in recent years as a promising alternative for fast and sensitive infrared detectors working in the photon counting mode. In particular, those detectors combine very low dark count rates (below 1 Hz), high speed (above 1 GHz), photon number resolution and reasonable quantum efficiency (10% at telecom wavelengths). They already found applications in quantum cryptography systems and integrated circuit failure analysis, but could also be used as ultimate sensors in matrix configurations. We show here the optimization of SSPD fabrication and their optical metrology at CEA. SSPD are fabricated by patterning a 80 nm wide nanowire in a very thin (4 nm) NbN film on sapphire, forming a pixel of several microns size. A cryogenic all-fibered optoelectronic system has been developed and allows precise metrology of the optical performances of SSPD. When biasing near the critical current of the nanowire, we demonstrate a detection quantum efficiency of 8% at 1.55 µm, which is also found to be strongly polarization dependent. This quantum efficiency being limited by optical absorption, we propose a prism coupling based absorption enhancing structure that allows reaching 100% quantum efficiency.
Ever since superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs or SSPDs) were demonstrated, they have attracted a considerable attention due to the detectors’ promising performance that includes high detection efficiency (DE), low dark count rate (DCR), broadband sensitivity, and low timing jitter. The system detection efficiency (SDE) has been improved to be over 90% with a wavelength of 1550 nm in a fiber-coupled system by embedding the SNSPD in optical cavities. However, the implementation of optical cavity usually reduces the bandwidth of SNSPDs. As a result, there are some recent works on increasing the bandwidth of SNSPD. Furthermore, the size of the active area of meandered nanowires has to be compatible with the core size of an optical fiber such that good optical coupling can be achieved; this setup requires a long nanowire with a large kinetic inductance, thus resulting in a small counting rate and a large timing jitter, particularly for multi-mode fiber-coupled devices. Nevertheless, a particularly impressive waveguide-coupled SNSPD has been developed in recent years. By placing an SNSPD atop an optical waveguide that has been fabricated on various substrate materials, photons propagating in the waveguide have been found to be evanescently absorbed by nanowires that are only a few tens of microns long. The on-chip DE of this device has been estimated to be over 90%, thus indicating that it has both high absorptance and high intrinsic DE. If the waveguide and the nanowire are correctly dimensioned, the absorptance of this device can reach over 90% for a wavelength range of more than 700 nm. Furthermore, the length of the nanowire is shorter than that of the fiber-coupled SNSPD, thus leading to a higher count rate and lower timing jitter (~18 ps). However, unsatisfactory coupling losses between the optical fiber and the waveguide in such devices can decrease its SDE (~10%), thus limiting its applicability to quantum photonic integrated circuits (QPIC). Recently, we proposed a type of SNSPD that was coupled with microfibers (MFs), and simulations for this SNSPD indicated that its absorption would be as high as 90%. Microfibers and nanofibers, tapered adiabatically from standard fibers, with diameters close to or smaller than the wavelength of the guided light were demonstrated to have low transmittance losses by Tong et al. in 2003. MFs have been shown to have many interesting properties, such as strong evanescent fields, tight optical confinement, wideband abilities, and small masses; these properties are appealing for applications such as optical sensing and coupling. MFs also provide seamless connections with high transmittance from standard fibers; therefore, MF-coupled SNSPDs can achieve both high SDEs and wideband compatibility. We proposed and demonstrated the MF-coupled SNSPDs successfully. The simulation results indicate that with optimal device structure, the optical absorption with efficiency < 90% can be realized over a wavelength range of 350 nm to 2150 nm. The fabricated MF-coupled SNSPD, shows unparalleled broadband system detection efficiencies (SDEs) of more than 50% from 630 nm to 1500 nm. The SDEs reach 66% at 785 nm and 45% at 1550 nm. These results pave the way for ultra-broadband weak light detection with quantum-limit sensitivity.