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Applied Physics Letters

Single-photon detection using magnesium diboride superconducting nanowires

Hiroyuki Shibata, Hiroki Takesue, Toshimori Honjo, Tatsushi Akazaki, 康弘 都倉

Published Nov 22, 2010• 87 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We fabricated 10 nm thick MgB2 nanowires with a width down to 100 nm using the liftoff process. The I-V characteristics of the nanowire show hysteresis and a sharp voltage jump at Ic. Though a 150 nm wide nanowire exhibits the capacity for detecting a single photon at 405 nm wavelength, the nanowire is too wide to detect a single photon at 1560 nm. A 100 nm wide nanowire exhibits the capacity for detecting single photons in the 405–1560 nm wavelength range. This indicates a possible application of MgB2 as a high-performance superconducting nanowire single-photon detector.

DOI
10.1063/1.3518723

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We develop single-photon detectors comprising single-mode fiber-coupled superconducting nanowires, with high system detection efficiencies at a wavelength of 940 nm. The detector comprises a 6.5-nm-thick, 110-nm-wide NbN nanowire meander fabricated onto a Si substrate with a distributed Bragg reflector for enhancing the optical absorptance. We demonstrate that, via the design of a low filling factor (1/3) and active area (Φ = 10 μm), the system reaches a detection efficiency of ∼60% with a dark count rate of 10 Hz, a recovery time <12 ns, and a timing jitter of ∼50 ps.
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Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors(SSPDs or SNSPDs) can detect single photons in a wide spectrum range from ultraviolet to mid-infrared wavelengths. We developed SSPDs for the light wavelength of 900-1100 nm, where it is difficult to achieve high detection efficiency by either Si or InGaAs avalanche photodiodes. We designed and fabricated the SSPD with non-periodic dielectric multilayers (DMLs) composed of SiO2 and TiO2 to enhance the optical absorptance in the wavelength range of 900-1100 nm. We measured the detection efficiency (DE) in the wavelength range of 800-1360 nm using a supercontinuum light source and found that the wavelength dependence of DE was in good agreement with the simulated spectrum of the optical absorptance of the nanowire device on the designed DML. The highest system DE was 81.0% for the wavelength of 980 nm.
Abstract Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) are key building blocks for photonic quantum technologies due to their ability to detect single photons with ultra-high efficiency, low dark counts and fast temporal resolution. Superconducting materials exhibiting high uniformity, large absorption cross-section and atomic-scale thickness are desirable to extend single-photon detection from the near-infrared up to the terahertz regime, where existing material choices are especially constrained. Substrate independence would further open the way to integrating detectors onto functional materials and heterostructures, enhancing performance and enabling proximal readout of a wide range of individual excitations. Here, we pattern the prototypical two-dimensional superconductor niobium diselenide (NbSe 2 ) into few-layer nanowires less than 100 nm wide and demonstrate single-photon detection at 780 nm and 1550 nm. At the same time, the dark-count rate remains below 1 Hz up to the switching current and we achieve a timing jitter below 50 ps. We estimate via a diffusive hot-spot model that materials and geometric parameters would allow a theoretical cut-off wavelength in the millimetre range, assuming state-of-the-art device parameters. Our results open up routes toward quantum-limited detectors integrated into quantum-photonic circuits and quantum devices, with the potential for novel detection capabilities and unprecedented energy sensitivity.