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Lecture notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

Fiber Coupled Single Photon Detector with Niobium Superconducting Nanowire

Go Fujii, Daiji Fukuda, Takayuki Numata, Akio Yoshizawa, Hidemi Tsuchida, Shuichiro Inoue, Tatsuya Zama

Published Jan 1, 2010• 6 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-11731-2_26

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arXiv:1811.09779•Nov 24, 2018•1 citation
Niobium nitride (NbN) nanowires have a high repetition rate and efficiency, making them ideal for superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs). However, it is difficult to fabricate NbN arrays over large areas, which is critical for various applications. This paper describes a 4 × 4 NbN SNSPD array (16 pixels) and optical coupling with a 300-μm-diameter multimode fiber using beam compression technology. This is the first NbN SNSPD coupled with such large-diameter fibers. The designed pixels are positioned as closely as possible (pixel filling factor about 98.5%), almost without dead area between them. This results in a system efficiency of 46% and a quantum efficiency of 94.5% for photons (λ = 1064 nm) coupled from multimode fibers. An intrinsic time resolution of less than 69 ps can be obtained. The proposed high-performance single photon detector is suitable for satellite laser ranging. Furthermore, the proposed system is feasible for large SNSPD arrays with NbN, paving the way for the development of efficient photon cameras with NbN nanowires.
Single-photon detectors with high detection rates are the foundation for the high-speed remote laser communication. Although a total detection rate of gigahertz has been achieved with multiple superconducting nanowires, the coupled single-mode fibers are incompatible with most large-aperture optical telescopes, and the uneven response distribution between nanowires also limits the system performance in practice. Here, we report a multimode fiber coupled superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) with a gigahertz detection rate through 16 intertwined niobium nitride nanowires operated at 2.4 K. The SNSPD is coupled with a 62.5 μm multimode fiber through beam compression. Overcoming the interference of speckles in multimode fibers, all nanowires perform highly uniform with narrow distributions of detection efficiencies (5.48% ± 0.136%), achieving a total detection efficiency of 87.6% and a total system detection efficiency of 52.3%, a maximum detection rate of 1.3 Gcps when the efficiency drops by 3 dB, and a highest detection rate of 3.1 Gcps before latching occurs. The significance of the uniform performance of pixels in terms of system speed is verified by modeling the combined detection rate vs the detection efficiency distribution, which is crucial in high-speed laser communication.
Niobium Nitride (NbN) nanowire is the most popular detection material of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) for high repetition rate and high efficiency. However, it has been assumed to be difficult for fabricating SNSPDs with arrays over large area, which are critical components of quantum imaging, linear optical quantum computing, satellite laser ranging, and high-speed quantum key distribution. This paper reported a 4*4 pixel NbN SNSPDs array with an equivalent receiving aperture of 300 micrometer associated with beam compression technology, which is the first NbN SNSPD coupled by 300 micrometer fiber according to our knowledge. The designed pixel was compact with a filling factor of 98.5%, resulting in a high quantum efficiency of 94.5%, a system efficiency of 46% for photons coupled from 300 micrometer fiber without optimizing polarization, and a system time resolution of 92 ps. This work demonstrates the feasibility of a large SNSPDs array, and paves the way for developing efficient photon camera with NbN nanowires.