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IEICE Transactions on Electronics

Enhancing Detection Efficiency by Applying an Optical Cavity Structure in a Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector

Shigehito Miki, Taro Yamashita, Mikio Fujiwara, Masahide Sasaki, Zhen Wang

Published Jan 1, 2011• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report on the enhancement of system detection efficiency in a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) by applying the optical cavity structure. The nanowire was made using 4-nm-thick NbN thin films and covered with an SiO cavity and Au mirror designed for 1300-1600nm wavelengths. The device is mounted into fiber-coupled packages, and installed in a practical multichannel system based on GM cryocoolers. System detection efficiency depends on the absorptance of cavity structure, and reached 28% and 40% at 1550nm and 1310nm wavelengths, respectively. These values were considerably higher than an SNSPD without optical cavity.

DOI
10.1587/transele.e94.c.260

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We report on the enhancement of system detection efficiency in a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) by applying the optical cavity structure. The nanowire was made using 4-nm-thick NbN thin films and covered with an SiO cavity and Au mirror designed for 1300-1600nm wavelengths. The device is mounted into fiber-coupled packages, and installed in a practical multichannel system based on GM cryocoolers. System detection efficiency depends on the absorptance of cavity structure, and reached 28% and 40% at 1550nm and 1310nm wavelengths, respectively. These values were considerably higher than an SNSPD without optical cavity.
We have developed a practical superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) system with our superconducting thin films and devices fabrication, optical coupling packaging, and cryogenic technology. The SNSPD devices were fabricated from high-quality niobium nitride (NbN) ultra-thin films that were epitaxially grown on single-crystal MgO substrates, and optical cavity structure were applied for improvement of photo absorption efficiency. The SNSPD system was developed based on a compact Gifford-McMahon (GM) cryocooler, in which SNSPD can operate continuously at temperature of 2.9 K +/- 10 mK with low power consumption without any liquid cryogens. The system detection efficiencies at 1550 nm wavelength (at a 100 Hz dark count rate) were found to be 2.6% for device without optical cavity and 21% for device with optical cavity. The response speed of devices showed maximally 200 MHz with 5 × 5 mm square device, and timing jitter of 100 ps full width at a half maximum (FWHM) was observed.
We developed superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors with an optical cavity (OC-SNSPDs) for multichannel systems. For efficient coupling, the devices were installed in compact fiber-coupled packages after their substrate thickness was reduced from 400 to 45 microm. The measured detection efficiency (DE) measurement at different substrate thicknesses and the estimation of optical coupling efficiency indicated that approximately 98% of the input light beam could be radiated on a 15 x 15 microm2 nanowire area from behind the substrate. The DEs of a NbN OC-SNSPD system were observed to be 9.5% and 25% at 1550 nm and 1310 nm, respectively (dark-count rate: 100 c/s).
Increasing the detection efficiency (DE) is a hot issue in the development of the superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD). In this work, a cavity-integrated structure coupled to the SNSPD is used to enhance the light absorption of nanowire. Ultra-thin Nb films are successfully prepared by magnetron sputtering, which are used to fabricate Nb/Al SNSPD with the curve of 100 nm and the square area of 4 × 4 μm 2 by sputtering and the lift-off method. To characterize the optical and electrical performance of the cavity-integrated SNSPD, a reliable cryogenic research system is built up based on a He 3 system. To satisfy the need of light coupling, a packaging structure with collimator is conducted. Both DE and the dark count rates increase with l b . It is also found that the DE of SNSPD with cavities can be up to 0.17% at the temperature of 0.7K under the infrared light of 1550 nm, which is obviously higher than that of the SNSPD directly fabricated upon silicon without any cavity structure.
Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors with an optical resonant cavity structure are fabricated directly on the single crystal substrate. In order to enhance the photons absorption of incident light and improve system detection efficiency (SDE) efficiently, the structure of SNSPD was designed and optimized using the finite-difference time-domain analysis for different kinds of substrates. The NbN-SNSPDs fabricated on different substrates are measured and compared. The SDE of NbN-SNSPD on MgO substrate reaches 66 % at the wavelength of 940nm at a dark count rate of 100 cps by illuminating from the back of the device through single mode optical fiber.
We demonstrate superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) for the wavelength at around 2 μm. The linewidth of the NbN nanowire is squeezed to 56 nm to increase the intrinsic response efficiencies at longer wavelengths such as 2 μm. Serially connecting avalanche architecture is applied to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the response signal. Further, the optical cavity is optimized to improve the absorption of the device. A silica single-mode fiber is adopted to introduce photons to the SNSPD at a temperature of 2.25 K using a Gifford-McMahon cryocooler. The SNSPD exhibits detection efficiencies of 58%, 67%, and 63% at wavelengths of 1550, 1700, and 2000 nm, respectively, with dark count rate of ~12 kcps, which is reduced to 2 cps when the attached fiber pigtail is all placed inside the 40-K cryostat. The detection efficiency at 2000 nm is 2.5 times greater than that of the best previously developed detector with an efficiency of 25%. Our SNSPD is promising for practical applications in molecular science and earth meteorology.
We report the characterization of optical coupling efficiency and the absorption coefficient of fiber-coupled superconducting nanowire single photon detector with an optical cavity, which limit the system detection efficiency. The small lenses were applied to compact fiber-coupled package and the efficient optical coupling higher than 95% were confirmed experimentally. The absorption coefficient was also verified and reached to$\sim$60% at 1550 nm wavelength and optimum polarized condition. The system detection efficiencies at 1550, 1310 and 810 nm were 28, 40 and 3%, respectively, which are related to the absorptance dependencies on wavelengths.