Readout of Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors through Forward Biased Optical Modulators

Abstract

Scalable, high speed data transfer between cryogenic (0.1-4K) and room temperature environments is instrumental in a broad range of fields including quantum computing, superconducting electronics, single photon imaging and space-based communications. A promising approach to overcome the limitations of conventional wire-based readout is the use of optical fiber communication. Optical fiber presents a 100-1,000x lower heat load than conventional electrical wiring, relaxing the requirements for thermal anchoring, and is also immune to electromagnetic interference, which allows routing of sensitive signals with improved robustness to noise and crosstalk. Most importantly, optical fibers allow for very high bandwidth densities (in the Tbps/mm 2 range) by carrying multiple signals through the same physical fiber (Wavelength Division Multiplexing, WDM). Here, we demonstrate for the first time optical readout of a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) directly coupled to a CMOS photonic modulator, without the need for an interfacing device. By operating the modulator in the forward bias regime at a temperature of 3.6 K, we achieve very

Cavity electro-optics in thin-film lithium niobate for efficient microwave-to-optical transduction

“…Such a transducer offers a promising route toward both large-scale distributed superconducting quantum networks and the scaling of superconductor quantum processors beyond single cryogenic environments [7]. Furthermore, single-photon microwave-to-optical transduction can be used to create high efficiency modulators [8], detectors for individual microwave photons [9], and multiplexed readout of cryogenic electronics [10].…”