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Optics Letters

781 Mbit/s photon-counting optical communications using a superconducting nanowire detector

Bryan S. Robinson, Andrew J. Kerman, Eric A. Dauler, Richard J. Barron, David O. Caplan, Mark L. Stevens, John Carney, Scott A. Hamilton, Joel K. W. Yang, Karl K. Berggren

Published Feb 15, 2006• 183 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate 1550 nm photon-counting optical communications with a NbN-nanowire superconducting single-photon detector. Source data are encoded with a rate-1/2 forward-error correcting code and transmitted by use of 32-ary pulse-position modulation at 5 and 10 GHz slot rates. Error-free performance is obtained with -0.5 detected photon per source bit at a source data rate of 781 Mbits/s. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest reported data rate for a photon-counting receiver.

DOI
10.1364/ol.31.000444

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We demonstrate 1550 nm photon-counting optical communications with a NbN-nanowire superconducting single-photon detector. Source data are encoded with a rate-1/2 forward-error correcting code and transmitted by use of 32-ary pulse-position modulation at 5 and 10 GHz slot rates. Error-free performance is obtained with -0.5 detected photon per source bit at a source data rate of 781 Mbits/s. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest reported data rate for a photon-counting receiver.
The sensitivity of a high-rate photon-counting optical communications link depends on the performance of the photon counter used to detect the optical signal. In this paper, we focus on ways to reduce the effect of blocking, which is loss due to time periods in which the photon counter is inactive following a preceding detection event. This blocking loss can be reduced by using an array of photon counting detectors or by using photon counters with a shorter inactive period. Both of these techniques for reducing the blocking loss can be employed by using a multi-element superconducting nanowire single-photon detector. Two-element superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors are used to demonstrate error-free photon counting optical communication at data rates of 781 Mbit/s and 1.25 Gbit/s.
Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors have recently been demonstrated as viable candidates for photon-counting optical receivers operating at data rates in excess of 100 Mbit/s. In this paper, we discuss techniques for extending these data rates to rates > 1 Gbit/s. We report on a recent demonstration of a 2-element nanowire detector array operating at a source data rate of 1.25 Gbit/s. We also describe techniques for emulating larger arrays of detectors using a single detector. We use these techniques to demonstrate photon-counting receiver operation at data rates from 780-Mbit/s to 2.5 Gbit/s with sensitivities ranging from 1.1 to 7.1 incident photons per bit.
Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors are a key technology for quantum information and science due to their high efficiency, low timing jitter, and low dark counts. In this work, we present a detector for single 1550 nm photons with up to 78% detection efficiency, timing jitter below 50 ps FWHM, 158 counts/s dark count rate - as well as a world-leading maximum count rate of 1.5 giga-counts/s at 3 dB compression. The PEACOQ detector (Performance-Enhanced Array for Counting Optical Quanta) comprises a linear array of 32 straight superconducting niobium nitride nanowires which span the mode of an optical fiber. This design supports high count rates with minimal penalties for detection efficiency and timing jitter. We show how these trade-offs can be mitigated by implementing independent read-out for each nanowire and by using a temporal walk correction technique to reduce count-rate dependent timing jitter. These detectors make quantum communication practical on a 10 GHz clock.
Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors are a key technology for quantum information and science due to their high efficiency, low timing jitter, and low dark counts. In this work, we present a detector for single 1550 nm photons with up to 78% detection efficiency, timing jitter below 50 ps FWHM, 158 counts/s dark count rate, as well as a maximum count rate of 1.5 giga-counts/s at 3 dB compression. The PEACOQ detector (Performance-Enhanced Array for Counting Optical Quanta) comprises a linear array of 32 straight superconducting niobium nitride nanowires that span the mode of an optical fiber. This design supports high count rates with minimal penalties for detection efficiency and timing jitter. We show how these trade-offs can be mitigated by implementing independent readout for each nanowire and by using a temporal walk correction technique to reduce count-rate dependent timing jitter. These detectors make quantum communication practical on a 10 GHz clock.
We report our studies on the performance of new NbN ultrathin-film superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPDs). Our SSPDs exhibit experimentally measured quantum efficiencies from ~ 5% at wavelength λ = 1550 nm up to ~10% at λ = 405 nm, with exponential, activation-energy-type spectral sensitivity dependence in the 0.4-μm - 3-μm wavelength range. Using a variable optical delay setup, we have shown that our NbN SSPDs can resolve optical photons with a counting rate up to 10 GHz, presently limited by the read-out electronics. The measured device jitter was below 35 ps under optimum biasing conditions. The extremely high photon counting rate, together with relatively high (especially for λ > 1 μm) quantum efficiency, low jitter, and very low dark counts, make NbN SSPDs very promising for free-space communications and quantum cryptography.