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Physica Scripta

Superconducting nanowire single photon detector design with multispectral and polarization-sensitive performance

Xinyi Liu, Chaojie Wang, Xiyu Chen, Rongzhen Jiao

Published Nov 1, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The multispectral and polarization-sensitive detection of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) have been identified in applications, such as quantum information processing and polarimetric imaging systems. Distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) demonstrate exceptional wavelength-selective reflectivity, and subwavelength gratings (SWGs) exhibit the ability to separate different polarized light. In this paper, a multispectral and polarization-sensitive SNSPD design is proposed by combining DBRs and SWGs. In the design, the NbN nanowires are positioned on two DBR stacks with respective central wavelengths of 1400 nm and 930 nm, followed by integration of Si-Al composite gratings onto the surface layer. Numerical simulation results show that, setting the fill factor at 0.5, the polarization sensitivity of the SNSPD is ∼0.98, with absorption efficiencies of ∼95%, ∼92%, and ∼94% at wavelengths of 1064 nm, 1310 nm, and 1550 nm, respectively. The design proposed in this work could facilitate the development of high-performance SNSPDs, potentially advancing their applications in multispectral polarization imaging and quantum communication systems.

DOI
10.1088/1402-4896/ae1e3b

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A multispectral superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) that is sensitive to different incident photon wavelength bands, is proposed. The SNSPD consists of a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR), a gold mirror, and two regions employing four NbN nanowire meander layers. Using the DBR, both as a filter and a reflector, creates two distinct detection bands. The first detection band has a peak absorptance of 0.792 at a wavelength of 1164 nm, while the second band has a total absorptance of >0.70 in the wavelength range 1440 to 2000 nm. The design of the proposed SNSPD can be tuned to provide sensitivity to different wavelength bands. While conventional SNSPDs do not typically provide photon wavelength sensitivity, the band-selection design proposed in this work opens up its potential applications for future quantum communication technology.
Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) struggle to balance high system detection efficiency (SDE) and low polarization dependence. This work proposes a co-design of the NbN films, α -Si anti-reflection coating (ARC), and SiO 2 /Ta 2 O 5 distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) to reduce the polarization-dependent optical response of the nanowires. Simulations based on rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) and the finite-element method show absorptance above 99% for both transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) polarizations and absorptance above 90% over the wavelength range from 1530 to 1640 nm. Experimentally, the device achieves 97% SDE at 1530 nm (polarization sensitivity, PS = 1.1), PS < 1.3 over 1490–1640 nm, 39.5 ns recovery time, and 63.5 ps timing jitter. Retaining a conventional single-layer meander nanowire geometry, this design unifies high efficiency and polarization insensitivity, advancing SNSPD applications in quantum communications, free-space links, and single-photon imaging.
In this work, we report multispectral superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) that can simultaneously detect single photons at multiple wavelengths with high efficiency. The superconducting nanowires are fabricated on an all-dielectric mirror consisting of two quarter-wave stack reflectors with separated central wavelengths. The unique optical structure results in serially coupled optical cavities, leading to multiple resonant absorption bands that are utilized for high-efficiency single photon detection. The fabricated detector shows system detection efficiencies of >80% at the three target wavelengths of 1550 nm, 1310 nm, and 1064 nm. The multispectral detector may eliminate the need for multiple SNSPDs for different wavelengths in a system, potentially resulting in a reduction in size, weight, and power, as well as in the cost of the overall detection system. The detector may also find interesting use for applications such as multispectral ranging or imaging.
Sensor arrays for fast-speed polarimetric imaging rely on the developments of the polarization sensitive photodetectors, of which the absorption efficiency and polarization extinction ratio (PER) are the two major design concerns. This paper presents the numerical results of the design of an efficient superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) with high polarization sensitivity by taking advantage of the polarization dependent interferometric effect of a composite mirror. Numerical simulations show that for a SNSPD designed at 1550 nm, the absorption efficiency for parallel polarization is 95% and the PER is 1.5×104. The simulated high PER is in agreement with the value estimated from an analytical model. In order to demonstrate the practicability of the device design, it is also shown that the proposed SNSPD has a good tolerance on fabrication uncertainties. The proposed design of the polarization sensitive SNSPD has a feature that it allows the absorption efficiency and PER to be simultaneously optimized.
We designed a low-filling-factor and polarization-sensitive superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD), which can achieve a high absorption efficiency and counting rate simultaneously. Numerical simulations show that high absorption efficiency can be achieved by low-filling-factor SNSPDs with a silicon slot and silver reflector. The absorptance of the NbN nanowire for a transverse magnetic (TM) wave at the wavelength of 1550 nm can be 84.4% when the filling factor is only 16.5%, and the corresponding polarization extinction ratio (PER) is 562.9; the absorptance of the NbN nanowire for a transverse electric (TE) wave can be 67.0% when the filling factor is only 11.7%, and the PER is 7.4.
We propose a superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) that can work efficiently at two target wavelengths and has a significant improvement in the counting rate due to the low-filling-factor nanowires in the silicon slots and the silver reflector. Numerical simulations show that the absorption efficiency can be over 90% at a single wavelength, whether the incident light wavelength is 1550 nm or 1064 nm, and over 80% when the SNSPD is designed to work at both wavelengths. In addition, the reset time is about 24% of the conventional SNSPDs. Our work presents a design for fabricating faster, larger-area, and multispectral SNSPDs with a high efficiency, which can be applied in applications such as quantum optics communication and multiwavelength sensing.