Photonic-integrated circuits have emerged as a scalable platform for complex quantum systems. A central goal is to integrate single-photon detectors to reduce optical losses, latency and wiring complexity associated with off-chip detectors. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are particularly attractive because of high detection efficiency, sub-50-ps jitter and nanosecond-scale reset time. However, while single detectors have been incorporated into individual waveguides, the system detection efficiency of multiple SNSPDs in one photonic circuit—required for scalable quantum photonic circuits—has been limited to <0.2%. Here we introduce a micrometer-scale flip-chip process that enables scalable integration of SNSPDs on a range of photonic circuits. Ten low-jitter detectors are integrated on one circuit with 100% device yield. With an average system detection efficiency beyond 10%, and estimated on-chip detection efficiency of 14–52% for four detectors operated simultaneously, we demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge, the first on-chip photon correlation measurements of non-classical light.

Improving the temporal resolution of single photon detectors has an impact on many applications 1 , such as increased data rates and transmission distances for both classical 2 and quantum 3-5 optical communication systems, higher spatial resolution in laser ranging and observation of shorter-lived fluorophores in biomedical imaging 6 . In recent years, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors 7,8 (SNSPDs) have emerged as the highest efficiency time-resolving single-photon counting detectors available in the near infrared 9 . As the detection mechanism in SNSPDs occurs on picosecond time scales 10 , SNSPDs have been demonstrated with exquisite temporal resolution below 15 ps [11][12][13][14][15] . We reduce this value to 2.7±0.2 ps at 400 nm and 4.6±0.2 ps at 1550 nm, using a specialized niobium nitride (NbN) SNSPD. The observed photon-energy dependence of the temporal resolution and detection latency suggests that intrinsic effects make a significant contribution.Temporal resolution in SNSPDs, commonly referred to as jitter, is characterized by the width of the temporal distribution of signal outputs with respect to the photon arrival times. This statistical distribution is known as the instrument response function (IRF), and its width is commonly evaluated as

We report on superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) based on 30 nm wide nanowires with detection efficiency η ∼ 2.6-5.5% in the wavelength range λ = 0.5-5 μm. We compared the sensitivity of 30 nm wide SNSPDs with the sensitivity of SNSPDs based on wider (85 and 50 nm wide) nanowires for λ = 0.5-5 μm. The detection efficiency of the detectors based on the wider nanowires became negligible at shorter wavelengths than the 30 nm wide SNSPDs. Our 30 nm wide SNSPDs showed 2 orders of magnitude higher detection efficiency (η ∼ 2%) up to longer wavelength (λ = 5 μm) than previously reported. On the basis of our simulations, we expect that by changing the optical coupling scheme and by integrating the detectors in an optical cavity, the detection efficiency of our detectors could be increased by a factor of ∼6.

Detecting spatial and temporal information of individual photons by using singlephoton-detector (SPD) arrays is critical to applications in spectroscopy, communication, biological imaging, astronomical observation, and quantum-information processing. Among the current SPDs 1 , detectors based on superconducting nanowires have outstanding performance 2 , but are limited in their ability to be integrated into large scale arrays due to the engineering difficulty of high-bandwidth cryogenic electronic readout [3][4][5][6][7][8] . Here, we address this problem by demonstrating a scalable single-photon imager using a single continuous photon-sensitive superconducting nanowire microwave-plasmon transmission line. By appropriately designing the nanowire's local electromagnetic environment so that the nanowire guides microwave plasmons, the propagating voltages signals generated by a photon-detection event were slowed down to ~ 2% of the speed of light. As a result, the time difference between arrivals of the signals at the two 2 ends of the nanowire naturally encoded the position and time of absorption of the photon. Thus, with only two readout lines, we demonstrated that a 19.7-mm-long nanowire meandered across an area of 286 μm × 193 μm was capable of resolving ~ 590 effective pixels while simultaneously recording the arrival times of photons with a temporal resolution of 50 ps. The nanowire imager presents a scalable approach to realizing high-resolution photon imaging in time and space. Main Text:Quantum and classical optics are currently limited by our ability to efficiently sense and process information about single photons. For example, to enhance the information-carrying capacity of a quantum channel 9 and improve security in quantum key distribution 10,11 , information is typically encoded in the position and arrival time of individual photons.Determining the spatial and temporal information of photons is currently accomplished by single-photon detector (SPD) arrays. Among existing SPD array technologies, the transition edge sensor (TES) and the microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) provide moderate spectral information but less impressive temporal resolution (e.g., the timing jitter is measured in nanoseconds for TESs 12 and microseconds for MKIDs 13 ). Photomultiplier tubes and singlephoton avalanche diodes have sub-1-ns timing jitter in the visible domain, but their detection performance deteriorates in the infrared, and scaling these technologies to large spatial arrays is challenging 1 . Improved timing performance of sub-20-ps timing jitter 14 and sub-10-ns recovery time 15 is possible with superconducting-nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs), which also have been demonstrated to have near-unity detection efficiency 2 , less than 1 dark-count per second (cps) 16 , a wide spectral response from the visible to infrared 17 and greater than 100 cps 3 counting rate 18 . However, attempts to create arrays of SNSPDs have had limited success 3-8 .Traditional row-column rectangular pixel arra...

Thin superconducting films form a unique platform for geometrically confined, strongly interacting electrons. They allow an inherent competition between disorder and superconductivity, which in turn enables the intriguing superconducting-to-insulating transition and is believed to facilitate the comprehension of high-T c superconductivity. Furthermore, understanding thin film superconductivity is technologically essential, e.g., for photodetectors and quantum computers. Consequently, the absence of established universal relationships between critical temperature (T c ), film thickness (d), and sheet resistance (R s ) hinders both our understanding of the onset of the superconductivity and the development of miniaturized superconducting devices. We report that in thin films, superconductivity scales as dT c (R s ). We demonstrated this scaling by analyzing the data published over the past 46 years for different materials (and facilitated this database for further analysis). Moreover, we experimentally confirmed the discovered scaling for NbN films, quantified it with a power law, explored its possible origin, and demonstrated its usefulness for nanometer-length-scale superconducting film-based devices. Relationships between low-temperature and normal-state properties are crucial for understanding superconductivity. For instance, the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory (BCS) successfully associates the normal-to-superconducting transition temperature, T c , with material parameters, such as the Debye temperature ( D ) and the density of states at the Fermi level [N (0)]. Hence, the BCS model allows us to infer superconducting characteristics (i.e., T c ) from properties measured at higher temperatures [1]. In the BCS framework, superconductivity occurs when attractive phonon-mediated electron-electron interactions overcome the Coulomb repulsion, giving rise to paired electrons (Cooper pairs) with a binding energy gap:. Moreover, within a superconductor, all Cooper pairs are coupled, giving rise to a collective electron interaction. Such a collective state is described by a complex global order parameter with real amplitude ( ) and phase (ϕ): = e iϕ .Because superconductivity relies on a collective electron behavior, the onset of superconductivity occurs when the number of participating electrons is just enough to be considered collective, i.e., at the nanoscale [2-5]. Thus, it is known that the superconductivity-disorder interplay varies in thin films and is effectively tuned with the film thickness (d) or with the disorder in the system, which is represented by sheet resistance of the film at the normal state (R s ) [6][7][8][9][10]. The mechanism of superconductivity in thin films has been investigated since the 1930s [6] increase in T c with decreasing thickness in aluminum films in a study that pioneered the currently ongoing research of thin superconducting films. This enhancement of T c , which is still not completely understood, was later confirmed by Strongin et al. [12], who also reported the more common be...