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Quantum 2.0 Conference and Exhibition

Jitter Cancelation with Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors for High Clock Rate Quantum Communication

Andrew Mueller, Emma E. Wollman, Boris A. Korzh, Andrew D. Beyer, Lautaro Narváez, M. Spiropulu, Matthew D. Shaw

Published Jan 1, 2022• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate a method for canceling jitter of Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) at high count rate by measuring and correcting for pulse distortions that are correlated with inter-pulse arrival time.
DOI
10.1364/quantum.2022.qtu2a.1

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Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are a leading detector type for time correlated single photon counting, especially in the near-infrared. When operated at high count rates, SNSPDs exhibit increased timing jitter caused by internal device properties and features of the RF amplification chain. Variations in RF pulse height and shape lead to variations in the latency of timing measurements. To compensate for this, we demonstrate a calibration method that correlates delays in detection events with the time elapsed between pulses. The increase in jitter at high rates can be largely canceled in software by applying corrections derived from the calibration process. We demonstrate our method with a single-pixel tungsten silicide SNSPD and show it decreases high count rate jitter. The technique is especially effective at removing a long tail that appears in the instrument response function at high count rates. At a count rate of 11.4 MCounts/s, we reduce the full width at 1% maximum level (FW1%M) by 45%. The method, therefore, enables certain quantum communication protocols that are rate-limited by the FW1%M metric to operate almost twice as fast.
Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) offer high detection speeds and excellent timing resolution, enabling numerous applications such as high-speed quantum communication and deep-space laser communication. However, at high count rates, timing jitter histograms deviate from a Gaussian profile and exhibit prominent secondary peaks, degrading jitter performance metrics such as full width at 10% maximum and full width at 1% maximum. This work identifies two distinct physical origins of these secondary peaks: multiphoton responses within a single excitation pulse and pulse pileup accompanied by time walk at high repetition rates. By experimentally isolating these mechanisms and applying corresponding statistical time-offset corrections, a near-Gaussian jitter distribution is restored. These results clarify the physics of secondary peaks in SNSPDs and provide a route to achieving simultaneous high counting rates and low timing jitter.
Low timing jitter is a unique merit of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) for time-correlated applications. Quantitative analysis was performed for the SNSPD system. Aided by an oscilloscope with an optimal signal amplitude, we were able to measure a full width at half-maximum system timing jitter as low as 14.2 ps for a high-switching-current SNSPD using a room-temperature low-noise amplifier. When using a time-correlated single-photon counting module, the system timing jitter was 17.3 ps. The detector's intrinsic timing jitter was estimated at ∼12.0 ps.
Jitter is one of the key parameters for a superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD). Using an optimized time-correlated single photon counting system for jitter measurement, we extensively studied the dependence of system jitter on the bias current and working temperature. The signal-to-noise ratio of the single-photon-response pulse was proven to be an important factor in system jitter. The final system jitter was reduced to 18 ps by using a high-critical-current SNSPD, which showed an intrinsic SNSPD jitter of 15 ps. A laser ranging experiment using a 15-ps SNSPD achieved a record depth resolution of 3 mm at a wavelength of 1550 nm.
We investigated the timing jitter of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) and found a strong dependence on the detector response. By varying the multi-layer structure, we observed changes in pulse shape which are attributed to capacitive behaviour affecting the pulse heights, rise times and consequently timing jitter. Moreover, we developed a technique to predict the timing jitter of a single device within certain limits by capturing only a single detector pulse, eliminating the need for detailed jitter measurement using a pulsed laser when a rough estimate of the timing jitter is sufficient.
Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) are well known for their single-photon sensitivity, low jitter, and high efficiency. Their dynamic range is generally limited either to zero or one (no photon, or a photon absorbed), and if single-photon sensitivity is needed in the vicinity of a strong light pulse, a counteraction like gating needs to be deployed. In such a scheme, we aim at the fastest possible transition time which is helpful to increase sensitivity, to temporally filter any strong laser excitation, and further suppress dark counts. Here, we present our work of time-gated SNSPDs where the detection current can be switched on- and off to allow the detector not to be saturated. We start our discussion by introducing the simplest gating scheme based on a square wave resulting in switch-off-switching transition times of ≈50ns. Then we present a new method to improve this relatively slow transition time to the sub-nanosecond range. Latest measurements of efficiency recovery and jitter are presented, and we show that a 1550nm light pulse with 100’000 photons within 500ns, applied right before the on-transition of the SNSPD, does not yet affect the performance in the on-state.