High-speed detection of 1550  nm single photons with superconducting nanowire detectors

Abstract

Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors are a key technology for quantum information and science due to their high efficiency, low timing jitter, and low dark counts. In this work, we present a detector for single 1550 nm photons with up to 78% detection efficiency, timing jitter below 50 ps FWHM, 158 counts/s dark count rate, as well as a maximum count rate of 1.5 giga-counts/s at 3 dB compression. The PEACOQ detector (Performance-Enhanced Array for Counting Optical Quanta) comprises a linear array of 32 straight superconducting niobium nitride nanowires that span the mode of an optical fiber. This design supports high count rates with minimal penalties for detection efficiency and timing jitter. We show how these trade-offs can be mitigated by implementing independent readout for each nanowire and by using a temporal walk correction technique to reduce count-rate dependent timing jitter. These detectors make quantum communication practical on a 10 GHz clock.

Photon number resolving detection in commercially produced SNSPDs

“…This can be mitigated by meandering nanowire devices together in parallel. 10,11 Although this does evenly distribute the light across the independent elements, it also increases the thermal coupling length between the wires because they run parallel across all meanders across the detection area. This can be mitigated by increasing the wire pitch as discussed in.…”

Gigahertz Detection Rates and Dynamic Photon-Number Resolution with Superconducting Nanowire Arrays

“…A commonly used metric for evaluating the maximum count rate (MCR) of an SNSPD is to extract the detection rate at 50% of the maximum efficiency. 39 As shown in Figure 2c, each pixel has an MCR of ∼100 MHz, thus showing the potential of achieving gigahertz counting rates when simultaneously operating the entire array. The results presented in Figure 4 experimentally demonstrate this capability.…”

“…Such photons can be used in LOQC, GBS, , and quantum repeater protocols for long distance communication, , which generally require very narrow bandwidth photons to match those of quantum memories. Independent multipixel SNSPD arrays have been investigated to remove the limitations of series and parallel designs in terms of maximum detection rate, at the cost of a more complex readout. − However, a full analysis of the PNR capabilities of independent multipixel arrays and a demonstration of operation with long light pulses are crucially still lacking.…”

“…Here, we illuminate the array with a CW laser at 1550 nm and measure the pixel detection efficiency as a function of the pixel detection rate with each pixel biased close to I sw . A commonly used metric for evaluating the maximum count rate (MCR) of an SNSPD is to extract the detection rate at 50% of the maximum efficiency . As shown in Figure c, each pixel has an MCR of ∼100 MHz, thus showing the potential of achieving gigahertz counting rates when simultaneously operating the entire array.…”

Large-inductance superconducting microstrip photon detector enabling 10 photon-number resolution

“…Superconducting nanostrip single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) 19 are a cutting-edge single-photon detection technology, renowned for near-unity detection efficiency, 20 – 22 negligible dark counts, 23 , 24 gigahertz-level counting rate, 25 , 26 and timing jitter at the picosecond scale 27 . These exceptional attributes have catapulted them to significant applications within the field of quantum information technology 28 .…”