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Lecture notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

Nano-Optical Studies of Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors

John A. O’Connor, Paul A. Dalgarno, Michael G. Tanner, Richard John Warburton, Robert H. Hadfield, Burm Baek, Sae Woo Nam, Shigehito Miki, Zhen Wang, Masahide Sasaki

Published Jan 1, 2010• 1 citation
Publisher
DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-11731-2_20

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Optical nano-antennae have been integrated with semiconductor lasers to intensify light at the nanoscale and photodiodes to enhance photocurrent. In quantum optics, plasmonic metal structures have been used to enhance nonclassical light emission from single quantum dots. Absorption and detection of single photons from free space could also be enhanced by nanometallic antennae, but this has not previously been demonstrated. Here, we use nano-optical transmission effects in a one-dimensional gold structure, combined with optical cavity resonance, to form optical nano-antennae, which are further used to couple single photons from free space into a 80-nm-wide superconducting nanowire. This antenna-assisted coupling enables a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector with 47% device efficiency at the wavelength of 1550 nm and 9-μm-by-9-μm active area while maintaining a reset time of only 5 ns. We demonstrate nanoscale antenna-like structures to achieve exceptional efficiency and speed in single-photon detection.