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High Operating Temperature Integrated Single Photon Detectors on Thin-Film Lithium Niobate

Myriam Rihani, Odiel Hooybergs, Giovanni Finco, Alessandro Palermo, Sjoerd Telkamp, W. Wegscheider, Rachel Grange, Robert J. Chapman

Published Jan 1, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present NbTiN superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors integrated on thin-film lithium niobate waveguides operated at 5 K, demonstrating high critical temperature, low dark counts and fast reset, towards fully integrated and scalable quantum photonic systems.
DOI
10.3929/ethz-c-000806009

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We demonstrate waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors on thin-film lithium niobate (LN). Using a 250 um-long NbN superconducting nanowire lithographically defined on top of a 125 um-long LN nanowaveguide, on-chip detection efficiency of 46% is realized with simultaneous high performance in dark count rate and timing jitter. As LN possesses high second-order nonlinear \c{hi}(2) and electro-optic properties, an efficient single-photon detector on thin-film LN opens up the possibility to construct small scale fully-integrated quantum photonic chip which includes single-photon sources, filters, tunable quantum gates and detectors.
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We demonstrate waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors on thin-film lithium niobate (LiNbO3, LN). Using a 250 μm-long NbN superconducting nanowire lithographically defined on top of a 125 μm-long LN nanowaveguide, an on-chip detection efficiency of 46% is realized with simultaneous high performance in dark count rates and timing jitter. As LN possesses high χ(2) second-order nonlinear and electro-optic properties, an efficient single-photon detector on thin-film LN opens up the possibility to construct a small-scale fully integrated quantum photonic chip, which includes single-photon sources, filters, tunable quantum gates, and detectors.
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