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arXiv:2503.22670 · ACS Photonics

Toward Single-Photon Detection with Superconducting Niobium Diselenide Nanowires

Pietro Metuh, Athanasios Paralikis, Paweł Wyborski, Sherwan Jamo, Alessandro Palermo, Lucio Zugliani, Matteo Barbone, Kai Müller, Niels Gregersen, S. Vaitiekėnas, Jonathan James Finley, Battulga Munkhbat

Published Sep 2, 2025• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide We present superconducting nanowire photodetectors based on hBN-encapsulated, few-layer NbSe 2, showing signatures of single-photon sensitivity. The top-down fabrication process preserves the superconducting properties of NbSe 2, as confirmed by low-temperature transport measurements showing comparable results to unpatterned sheets, and it maintains a contact and wiring resistance down to ∼30 Ω at T = 4 K. Meandered NbSe 2 nanowires exhibit high responsivity (up to 4.9 × 10 4 V/W) over a spectral range of 650–1550 nm in a closed-cycle cryostat at 4 K, outperforming samples with different geometries in this work. The meander achieves a recovery time of (135 ± 36) ns, a system timing jitter of (1103 ± 7) ps, and a detection efficiency of ∼0.01% at 0.95 I c . A linear increase of the count rate with the number of photons between the noise level and the latching threshold offers a signature of single-photon sensitivity at 1100 nm.

DOI
10.1021/acsphotonics.5c01195

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