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IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine

Demonstration of Single Photon Detection in Amorphous Molybdenum Silicide / Aluminium Superconducting Nanostrip

Daniela Salvoni, L. Parlato, Mikkel Ejrnaes, F. Mattioli, Alessandro Gaggero, Francesco Martini, G. Ausanio, D. Massarotti, Domenico Montemurro, Halima Giovanna Ahmad, Luigi Di Palma, Francesco Tafuri, Roberto Cristiano, Giovanni Piero Pepe

Published Jul 20, 2021• 9 citations

Abstract

Single photon detectors (SPD) are largely used when the signal to be measured is particularly low or if high accuracy, timing resolution and low noise are required. About twenty years ago, a new type of SPD based on superconducting materials appeared, and today these devices present the best performances in terms of efficiency, noise, counting rate, detectable wavelength, dead time, and timing jitter. In this work, we first describe the working principle of Superconducting Nanostrips Single Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) and provide a brief overview of the main properties and applications. Then, we present the results of the fabrication and characterization of Molybdenum Silicide SNSPDs with a cover layer of a thin Aluminium film (MoSi/Al). MoSi has already been adopted to fabricate SNSPDs, and in this work, we prove that the additional Al layer enhances the operating conditions without compromising the detection likelihood and leaving unaltered the properties of the device, even over a temporal window of two years and after several thermal cycles.

DOI: 10.1109/mim.2021.9491006

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Superconducting single-photon detectors (SNSPDs or SSPDs) based on superconducting nanowires offer single photon sensitivity at telecom wavelengths coupled with free running operation, high timing resolution and low dark counts. Amorphous superconducting materials open the pathway to improved yield and integration in advanced photonic applications. We report simulation, fabrication and experimental validation of waveguide integrated molybdenum silicide (MoSi) SNSPDs for scalable integration in quantum photonic circuits.

When superconducting materials work as Single Photon Detectors (SPD) they are patterned in nanostrips about 100 nm wide with a typical meander structure to increase the photosensitive area. Moreover, they are biased by a DC current close to the critical current to have higher efficiency. The critical current could be non uniform mainly in proximity of the turn bends producing an increase of the dark count events. In this work MoSi nano-strips covered with a very thin (2 nm) layer of Al, have been realized and characterized in a wide interval of temperatures from 6 K down to 7 mK to investigate the critical current as a function of the temperature and then its uniformity in the presence of sharp corners and/or turn-arounds. Finally, the counts rates were recorded by a nano-meander under irradiation at two different wavelengths λ = 650 nm and 1550 nm, respectively, and compared with the events in the dark regime.

Abstract Superconducting nanostrip single photon detectors have emerged as the highest performing single-photon detectors; however, the possibility to use superconducting microstrip as single photon detectors is very appealing both to use them as larger areas detectors and for an easier technology in the manufacturing. The aim of this work is to test the photoresponse in liquid helium dewar of 9 nm thick MoSi covered with a very thin (2 nm) layer of Al, in two different configurations: nanomeanders and microstrips. We demonstrate that MoSi/Al microstrips can work as photodetectors also at T = 4.2 K. We also compare the dark count rate of the microstrip and the nanowire, confirming the lower noise for the microstrips also at 4.2 K.

Future applications in integrated quantum photonics will require large numbers of efficient, fast, and low-noise single-photon counters. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors made from amorphous material systems are best suited to meet these demands, but the integration with nanophotonic circuits has remained a challenge. Here, we show how amorphous molybdenum silicide (MoSi) nanowires are integrated with nanophotonic silicon nitride waveguides in traveling wave geometry. We found a saturated on-chip detection efficiency of (73 ± 10) % for telecom wavelength photons and the sub-10 Hz dark count rate at a temperature of 2.1 K, which allows for operation in robust, compact, and economic cryogenic systems. Applications requiring fast counting will benefit from the sub-5 ns recovery times of our devices that we combine with 135 ps timing accuracy. Achieving this performance with waveguide-integrated amorphous superconductors is an important step toward enabling high yield fabrication of competitive single-photon detectors on a large variety of nanophotonic material systems.

Abstract Fiber components form the standard not only in modern telecommunication but also for future quantum information technology. For high-performance single-photon detection, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SPDs) are typically fabricated on a silicon chip and fiber-coupled for easy handling and usage. The fiber-to-chip interface hinders the SPD from being an all-fiber device for full utilization of its excellent performance. Here, we report a scheme of SPD that is directly fabricated on the fiber tip. A bury-and-planar fabrication technique is developed to improve the roughness of the substrate for all-fiber detectors’ performance for single-photon detection with amorphous molybdenum silicide (MoSi) nanowires. The low material selectivity and universal planar process enable fabrication and packaging on a large scale. Such a detector responds to a broad wavelength range from 405 nm to 1550 nm at a dark count rate of 100 cps. The relaxation time of the response pulse is ~ 15 ns, which is comparable to that of on-chip SPDs. Therefore, this device is free from fiber-to-chip coupling and easy packaging for all-fiber quantum information systems.