Improving superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors made of NbTiN using a novel method to characterize the timing jitter (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

In recent years, Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) have obtained tremendous attention as a possible key technology for photonic quantum processing and faint light detection. Here, we present our recent progress on engineering of the properties of NbTiN SNSPDs fabricated on various substrates measured. We discuss approaches to simultaneously improve the most important figures of merit (DCR, dead time, timing jitter, efficiency) as well as efficient characterization methods. Specifically, for the latter we investigate the impact of the substrate material on the performance parameters as well as the fundamental interrelation of the resulting voltage pulse properties, such as pulse height, rise time and timing jitter, and their dependence on the applied bias current.