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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Multiphoton detection in superconducting nanowires: nonlinear optics in the detector

Zili Zhou, G. Frucci, F. Mattioli, Alessandro Gaggero, Roberto Leoni, S. Jahanmirinejad, Thang B. Hoang, Andrea Fiore

Published May 29, 2013• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A Nth-order (N=1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) interferometric autocorrelator based on superconducting nanodetectors is presented. It provides much higher sensitivity as compared to the conventional autocorrelators using all-optical nonlinearities and a temporal resolution of about 20 ps, which is limited by the quasi-particle energy relaxation time in the superconducting films. A semiclassical model is introduced to explain the nonlinear photodetection process. A comparison of sensitivity to conventional autocorrelators is also presented.

DOI
10.1117/12.2018849

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Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors are set apart from other photon counting technologies above all else by their extremely high speed, with few-ten-ps timing resolution, and recovery times τR ≲ 10 ns after a detection event. In this work, however, we identify in the conventional electrical readout scheme a nonlinear interaction between the detector and its readout which can make stable, high-efficiency operation impossible at count rates even an order-of-magnitude less than τR−1. We present detailed experimental confirmation of this, and a theoretical model which quantitatively explains our observations. Finally, we describe an improved readout which circumvents this problem, allowing these detectors to be operated stably at high count rates, with a detection efficiency penalty determined purely by their inductive reset time.