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Li, M., Pernice, W. H. P., Xiong, C., Baehr-Jones, T., Hochberg, M., & Tang, H. X. (2008). Harnessing optical forces in integrated photonic circuits. Nature, 456(7221), 480–484.
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Vetter, A., Ferrari, S., Rath, P., Alaee, R., Kahl, O., Kovalyuk, V., et al. (2016). Cavity-enhanced and ultrafast superconducting single-photon detectors. Nano Lett., 16(11), 7085–7092.
Abstract: Ultrafast single-photon detectors with high efficiency are of utmost importance for many applications in the context of integrated quantum photonic circuits. Detectors based on superconductor nanowires attached to optical waveguides are particularly appealing for this purpose. However, their speed is limited because the required high absorption efficiency necessitates long nanowires deposited on top of the waveguide. This enhances the kinetic inductance and makes the detectors slow. Here, we solve this problem by aligning the nanowire, contrary to usual choice, perpendicular to the waveguide to realize devices with a length below 1 mum. By integrating the nanowire into a photonic crystal cavity, we recover high absorption efficiency, thus enhancing the detection efficiency by more than an order of magnitude. Our cavity enhanced superconducting nanowire detectors are fully embedded in silicon nanophotonic circuits and efficiently detect single photons at telecom wavelengths. The detectors possess subnanosecond decay ( approximately 120 ps) and recovery times ( approximately 510 ps) and thus show potential for GHz count rates at low timing jitter ( approximately 32 ps). The small absorption volume allows efficient threshold multiphoton detection.
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Ferrari, S., Kovalyuk, V., Hartmann, W., Vetter, A., Kahl, O., Lee, C., et al. (2017). Hot-spot relaxation time current dependence in niobium nitride waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. Opt. Express, 25(8), 8739–8750.
Abstract: We investigate how the bias current affects the hot-spot relaxation dynamics in niobium nitride. We use for this purpose a near-infrared pump-probe technique on a waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detector driven in the two-photon regime. We observe a strong increase in the picosecond relaxation time for higher bias currents. A minimum relaxation time of (22 +/- 1)ps is obtained when applying a bias current of 50% of the switching current at 1.7 K bath temperature. We also propose a practical approach to accurately estimate the photon detection regimes based on the reconstruction of the measured detector tomography at different bias currents and for different illumination conditions.
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Pernice, W., Schuck, C., Li, M., Goltsman, G. N., Sergienko, A. V., & Tang, H. X. (2011). High speed travelling wave single-photon detectors with near-unity quantum efficiency. arXiv, , 1–14.
Abstract: Ultrafast, high quantum efficiency single photon detectors are among the most sought-after elements in modern quantum optics and quantum communication. Close-to-unity photon detection efficiency is essential for scalable measurement-based quantum computation, quantum key distribution, and loophole-free Bell experiments. However, imperfect modal matching and finite photon absorption rates have usually limited the maximum attainable detection efficiency of single photon detectors. Here we demonstrate a superconducting nanowire detector atop nanophotonic waveguides and achieve single photon detection efficiency up to 94% at telecom wavelengths. Our detectors are fully embedded in a scalable, low loss silicon photonic circuit and provide ultrashort timing jitter of 18ps at multi-GHz detection rates. Exploiting this high temporal resolution we demonstrate ballistic photon transport in silicon ring resonators. The direct implementation of such a detector with high quantum efficiency, high detection speed and low jitter time on chip overcomes a major barrier in integrated quantum photonics.
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Pernice, W., Schuck, C., Minaeva, O., Li, M., Goltsman, G. N., Sergienko, A. V., et al. (2012). High speed and high efficiency travelling wave single-photon detectors embedded in nanophotonic circuits (Vol. 1108.5299). arXiv:1108.5299v2 [physics.optics].
Abstract: Ultrafast, high quantum efficiency single photon detectors are among the most sought-after elements in modern quantum optics and quantum communication. High photon detection efficiency is essential for scalable measurement-based quantum computation, quantum key distribution, and loophole-free Bell experiments. However, imperfect modal matching and finite photon absorption rates have usually limited the maximum attainable detection efficiency of single photon detectors. Here we demonstrate a superconducting nanowire detector atop nanophotonic waveguides which allows us to drastically increase the absorption length for incoming photons. When operating the detectors close to the critical current we achieve high on-chip single photon detection efficiency up to 91% at telecom wavelengths, with uncertainty dictated by the variation of the waveguide photon flux. We also observe remarkably low dark count rates without significant compromise of detection efficiency. Furthermore, our detectors are fully embedded in a scalable silicon photonic circuit and provide ultrashort timing jitter of 18ps. Exploiting this high temporal resolution we demonstrate ballistic photon transport in silicon ring resonators. The direct implementation of such a detector with high quantum efficiency, high detection speed and low jitter time on chip overcomes a major barrier in integrated quantum photonics.
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