Abstract
Single photon detectors are indispensable tools in optics, from fundamental measurements to quantum information processing. The ability of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) to detect single photons with unprecedented efficiency, short dead time, and high time resolution over a large frequency range enabled major advances in quantum optics. However, combining near-unity system detection efficiency (SDE) with high timing performance remains an outstanding challenge. In this work, we fabricated novel SNSPDs on membranes with 99.5−2.07+0.5% SDE at 1350 nm with 32 ps timing jitter (using a room-temperature amplifier), and other detectors in the same batch showed 94%–98% SDE at 1260–1625 nm with 15–26 ps timing jitter (using cryogenic amplifiers). The SiO2/Au membrane enables broadband absorption in small SNSPDs, offering high detection efficiency in combination with high timing performance. With low-noise cryogenic amplifiers operated in the same cryostat, our efficient detectors reach a timing jitter in the range of 15–26 ps. We discuss the prime challenges in optical design, device fabrication, and accurate and reliable detection efficiency measurements to achieve high performance single photon detection. As a result, the fast developing fields of quantum information science, quantum metrology, infrared imaging, and quantum networks will greatly benefit from this far-reaching quantum detection technology.
Highlights
A single photon stands for the quantum excitation of electromagnetic radiation
We demonstrated NbTiN-based superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) operated at 2.7 K with high performance: our best detectors showed a system detection efficiency (SDE) of (99.5+−02..507)% at 1350 nm and 98% ± 2.07% at 1425 nm
The ultrahigh efficiencies were achieved using the following methods: (i) an optimized thick NbTiN superconducting film with saturated internal efficiency, (ii) an optimized broadband membrane cavity coupled to small detectors, and (iii) accurate system efficiency measurements with a narrow linewidth tunable laser to precisely locate the high-efficiency peaks
Summary
A single photon stands for the quantum excitation of electromagnetic radiation. Driven by the explosive growth of quantum information science and quantum computation technology in the past few decades, technologies with regard to processing light at the single photon level have been greatly explored and developed. In the single photon detection end, avalanche photon diodes (APDs) are widely used due to their wide detection spectrum range, tunable detection speed, and non-cryogenic operation temperature. Since APDs’ response to infrared photons is typically lower compared to visible photons, frequency upconversion detectors can be used to solve this problem by upconverting the telecom wavelength of photons to the visible wavelength for easier detection. Using a 9 nm thick NbTiN superconducting film made by an optimized magnetron co-sputtering deposition process and a membrane cavity, we fabricated SNSPDs with over 99% SDE at 1350 nm ( over 98% SDE at 1425 nm; see the section titled “List of measured devices” of the supplementary material) and above 94% efficiency in the wavelength range of 1280–1500 nm These detectors achieved 15–26 ps timing jitter with a cryogenic amplification readout circuitry and an electrical recovery time of about 33 ns (1/e recovery time). With a low-noise cryogenic amplifier mounted on a 40 K stage in the same cryostat, the IRF of device #15 shows a Gaussian shape histogram; after fitting, we obtain 15.1 ± 0.05 ps (full width at half maximum, FWHM) timing jitter This detector was measured to have more than 91% SDE, and the ultralow timing jitter was mainly achieved by fabricating relatively small detectors, which results in lower kinetic inductance and, better jitter.. If the above-mentioned aspects can be realized, SNSPDs will enable more ground-breaking quantum optics applications and experiments in the near future
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