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The Rochester Conferences on Coherence and Quantum Optics and the Quantum Information and Measurement meeting

Achieving 98% system efficiency at 1550 nm in superconducting nanowire single photon detectors

Dileep V. Reddy, Adriana E. Lita, Sae Woo Nam, Richard P. Mirin, Varun Boehm Verma

Published Jan 1, 2019• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a fiber-coupled single-photon detector with 98% system detection efficiencies at 1550 nm. We characterize beam divergence within the optical stack and the electronic compensations required for large-active-area detectors.
DOI
10.1364/cqo.2019.w2b.2

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In this work, we report a large-active-area multispectral superconducting nanowire single-photon detector for free-space applications. The detector is realized by fabricating NbTiN nanowire with an active area of 35 µm diameter on two serially connected dielectric mirrors that can simultaneously and efficiently detect single photons at the three typical wavelengths employed in free-space applications, namely, 532, 850, and 1064 nm. Maximal system detection efficiencies (SDEs) of 80.0% at 532 nm and 850 nm and 75.8% at 1064 nm are achieved for polarized light obtained by coupling the detector with an SMF-28 fiber. Upon coupling with a 50 µm multimode fiber, SDEs of 68.6%, 59.6%, and 47.0%, are achieved for 532, 850, and 1064 nm wavelength unpolarized light, respectively. Moreover, the detector shows timing jitters of 37.1 and 41.0 ps when coupled with SMF-28 fiber and 50 µm multimode fiber. This type of detector with a large active area and multiwavelength detection capability is promising for both single and multiwavelength free-space applications.