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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Time-Tagged Multiplexing of Serially Biased Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors

M. Hofherr, Matthias Arndt, K. Ilin, D. Henrich, M. Siegel, Julia Toussaint, T. May, H.‐G. Meyer

Published Feb 11, 2013• 44 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a concept for a time-tagged multiplexed readout of several superconducting nanowire single-photon detector elements for small arrays in ultra-short pulsed laser applications. The detector elements were coupled in an array by a superconducting delay line giving each detector element a temporal signature. The complete detector chain is biased by one bias supply. The patterning concept and the first experimental proof of principle are demonstrated on two-detector element arrays with delay times of 86 and 156 ps each made from a 5-nm NbN film on sapphire. We discuss the propagation delay of a delay line taking the geometric and kinetic inductance into account. We show that mainly the normal conducting propagation velocity defines the characteristic time of the delay line and that the inductance dependent response pulse width currently limits the maximum number of detector elements.

DOI
10.1109/tasc.2013.2245935

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Superconducting nanowires are widely used as sensitive single photon detectors with wide spectral coverage and high timing resolution. We describe a demonstration of an array of dc-biased superconducting nanowire single photon detectors read out with a microwave multiplexing circuit. In this design, each individual nanowire is part of a resonant LC circuit where the inductance is dominated by the kinetic inductance of the nanowire. The circuit also contains two parallel plate capacitors, one of them is in parallel with the inductor and the other is coupled to a microwave transmission line that carries the signals to a cryogenic low-noise amplifier. All of the nanowires are connected via resistors to a single dc bias line that enables the nanowires to be current biased close to their critical current. When a photon hits a nanowire, it creates a normal hotspot that produces a voltage pulse across the LC circuit. This pulse rings down at the resonant frequency of the LC circuit over a time period that is fixed by the quality factor. We present measurements of an array of these devices and an evaluation of their performance in terms of frequency and time response.
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We propose an efficient multiplexing technique for superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors based on an orthogonal detector bias switching method enabling the extraction of the average count rate of a set of detectors by one readout line. We implemented a system prototype where the SNSPDs are connected to an integrated cryogenic readout and a pulse merger system based on rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ) electronics. We discuss the general scalability of this concept, analyze the environmental requirements which define the resolvability and the accuracy and demonstrate the feasibility of this approach with experimental results for a SNSPD array with four pixels.
We have fabricated and tested single photon detectors based on a current biased superconducting niobium nanowire patterned into a meander. The detectors are fabricated from high quality, ultra high vacuum sputtered niobium thin films on a sapphire substrate. For detection of single optical photons, we show that the superconductor's intrinsic kinetic inductance does not limit the reset time of the detector, which is ≈ 2 nanoseconds, in contrast to the longer reset times seen in niobium nitride detectors of similar size and geometry. We also describe a readout scheme for photon counting that is unique to Nb due to its lower resistivity. These detectors have applications in imaging of infrared photoemission from CMOS logic circuits as well as in optical communications and quantum information processing.
We propose a new operation principle for superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) enabling an efficient frequency-division multiplexing of the bias and readout signals of a large multipixel detector array. The SNSPD is part of a resonant circuit, and the microwave signal inside the device is used to bias the detector close to the critical state. Hence, an n×m pixel SNSPD array requires only two coaxial cables from room temperature to the detector ambient temperature of 4.2 K. We show the microwave characterization and single-photon response of such devices and compare the detector efficiencies with conventional dc-biased SNSPDs. Furthermore, we demonstrate the feasibility of array applications with the new operation mode in a two-pixel proof-of-principle device.