Vorobyov, V. V., Kazakov, A. Y., Soshenko, V. V., Korneev, A. A., Shalaginov, M. Y., Bolshedvorskii, S. V., et al. (2017). Superconducting detector for visible and near-infrared quantum emitters [Invited]. Opt. Mater. Express, 7(2), 513–526.
Abstract: Further development of quantum emitter based communication and sensing applications intrinsically depends on the availability of robust single-photon detectors. Here, we demonstrate a new generation of superconducting single-photon detectors specifically optimized for the 500–1100 nm wavelength range, which overlaps with the emission spectrum of many interesting solid-state atom-like systems, such as nitrogen-vacancy and silicon-vacancy centers in diamond. The fabricated detectors have a wide dynamic range (up to 350 million counts per second), low dark count rate (down to 0.1 counts per second), excellent jitter (62 ps), and the possibility of on-chip integration with a quantum emitter. In addition to performance characterization, we tested the detectors in real experimental conditions involving nanodiamond nitrogen-vacancy emitters enhanced by a hyperbolic metamaterial.
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Moshkova, M., Morozov, P., Divochiy, A., Vakhtomin, Y., & Smirnov, K. (2019). Large active area superconducting single photon detector. In J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. (Vol. 1410, 012139).
Abstract: We present development of large active area superconducting single-photon detectors well coupled with standard 50 μm-core multi-mode fiber. The sensitive area of the SSPD is patterned using the photon-number-resolving design and occupies an area of 40×40 μm2. Using this approach, we have obtained excellent specifications: system detection efficiency of 47% measured using a 900 nm laser and low dark count rate of 100 cps. The main advantages of the approach presented are a very short dead time of the detector of 22 ns and FWHM jitter value of about 130 ps.
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Smirnov, K. V., Divochiy, A. V., Vakhtomin, Y. B., Sidorova, M. V., Karpova, U. V., Morozov, P. V., et al. (2016). Rise time of voltage pulses in NbN superconducting single photon detectors. Appl. Phys. Lett., 109(5), 052601.
Abstract: We have found experimentally that the rise time of voltage pulse in NbN superconducting single photon detectors increases nonlinearly with increasing the length of the detector L. The effect is connected with dependence of resistance of the detector Rn, which appears after photon absorption, on its kinetic inductance Lk and, hence, on the length of the detector. This conclusion is confirmed by our calculations in the framework of two temperature model.
D.Yu.V. acknowledges the support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Project No. 15-42-02365). K.V.S. acknowledges the financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (Contract No. 3.2655.2014/K).
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Zolotov, P., Divochiy, A., Korneeva, Y., Vakhtomin, Y., Seleznev, V., & Smirnov, K. (2015). Capability investigation of superconducting single-photon detectors, optimized for 800–1200 nm spectrum range.
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Zolotov, P., Vakhtomin, Y., Divochiy, A., Seleznev, V., Morozov, P., & Smirnov, K. (2013). High-efficiency single-photon detectors based on NbN films.
Abstract: We present our resent results in development and testing of Superconducting Single-Photon Detectors (SSPD) with detection efficiencies greater than 85%. High values of obtained results are assigned to proposed design of the detector with integrated resonator structure, including two-layer optical cavity and anti-reflective coating (ARC).
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Jukna, A., Kitaygorsky, J., Pan, D., Cross, A., Perlman, A., Komissarov, I., et al. (2008). Dynamics of hotspot formation in nanostructured superconducting stripes excited with single photons. Acta Physica Polonica A, 113(3), 955–958.
Abstract: Dynamics of a resistive hotspot formation by near-infrared-wavelength single photons in nanowire-type superconducting NbN stripes was investigated. Numerical simulations of ultrafast thermalization of photon-excited nonequilibrium quasiparticles, their multiplication and out-diffusion from a site of the photon absorption demonstrate that 1.55 μm wavelength photons create in an ultrathin, two-dimensional superconducting film a resistive hotspot with the diameter which depends on the photon energy, and the nanowire temperature and biasing conditions. Our hotspot model indicates that under the subcritical current bias of the 2D stripe, the electric field penetrates the superconductor at the hotspot boundary, leading to suppression of the stripe superconducting properties and accelerated development of a voltage transient across the stripe.
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Zinoni, C., Alloing, B., Li, L. H., Marsili, F., Fiore, A., Lunghi, L., et al. (2007). Single-photonics at telecom wavelengths using nanowire superconducting single photon detectors. In CLEO/QELS (QTuF6 (1 to 2)). Optical Society of America.
Abstract: Novel single-photon detectors based on NbN superconducting nanostructures promise orders-of- magnitude improvement over InGaAs APDs. We demonstrate this improved performance for the first time by measuring the g(2)(τ) on single photon states produced by a quantum dot at telecom wavelength.
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Słysz, W., Węgrzecki, M., Bar, J., Grabiec, P., Górska, M., Zwiller, V., et al. (2006). Fiber-coupled single-photon detectors based on NbN superconducting nanostructures for practical quantum cryptography and photon-correlation studies. Appl. Phys. Lett., 88(26), 261113 (1 to 3).
Abstract: We have fabricated and tested a two-channel single-photon detector system based on two fiber-coupled superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPDs). Our best device reached the system quantum efficiency of 0.3% in the 1540-nm telecommunication wavelength with a fiber-to-detector coupling factor of about 30%. The photoresponse consisted of 2.5-ns-wide voltage pulses with a rise time of 250ps and timing jitter below 40ps. The overall system response time, measured as a second-order, photon cross-correlation function, was below 400ps. Our SSPDs operate at 4.2K inside a liquid-helium Dewar, but their optical fiber inputs and electrical outputs are at room temperature. Our two-channel detector system should find applications in practical quantum cryptography and in antibunching-type quantum correlation measurements.
The authors would like to thank Dr. Marc Currie for his assistance in early time-resolved photoresponse measurements and Professor Atac Imamoglu for his support. This work was supported by the Polish Ministry of Science under Project No. 3 T11B 052 26 (Warsaw), RFBR 03-02-17697 and INTAS 03-51-4145 grants (Moscow), CRDF Grant No. RE2-2531-MO-03 (Moscow), RE2-2529-MO-03 (Moscow and Rochester), and US AFOSR FA9550-04-1-0123 (Rochester). Additional funding was provided by the grants from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and BBN Technologies Corp.
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Chulkova, G., Milostnaya, I., Korneev, A., Minaeva, O., Rubtsova, I., Voronov, B., et al. (2005). Superconducting nanostructures for counting of single photons in the infrared range. In Proc. 2-nd CAOL (Vol. 2, pp. 100–103).
Abstract: We present our studies on ultrafast superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPDs) based on ultrathin NbN nanostructures. Our SSPDs are patterned by electron beam lithography from 4-nm thick NbN film into meander-shaped strips covering square area of 10/spl times/10 /spl mu/m/sup 2/. The advances in the fabrication technology allowed us to produce highly uniform 100-120-nm-wide strips with meander filling factor close to 0.6. The detectors exploit a combined detection mechanism, where upon a single-photon absorption, an avalanche of excited hot electrons and the biasing supercurrent, jointly produce a picosecond voltage transient response across the superconducting nanostrip. The SSPDs are typically operated at 4.2 K, but they have shown that their sensitivity in the infrared radiation range can be significantly improved by lowering the operating temperature from 4.2 K to 2 K. When operated at 2 K, the SSPD quantum efficiency (QE) for visible light photons reaches 30-40%, which is the saturation value limited by optical absorption of our 4-nm-thick NbN film. For 1.55 /spl mu/m photons, QE was /spl sim/20% and decreases exponentially with the increase of the optical wavelength, but even at the wavelength of 6 /spl mu/m the detector remains sensitive to single photons and exhibits QE of about 10/sup -2/%. The dark (false) count rate at 2 K is as low as 2 /spl times/ 10/sup -4/ s/sup -1/, what makes our detector essentially a background-limited sensor. The very low dark-count rate results in the noise equivalent power (NEP) as low as 10/sup -18/ WHz/sup -1/2/ for the mid-infrared range (6 /spl mu/m). Further improvement of the SSPD performance in the mid-infrared range can be obtained by substituting NbN for the other, lower-T/sub c/ superconductors with the narrow superconducting gap and low quasiparticle diffusivity. The use of such materials will shift the cutoff wavelength towards the values even longer than 6 /spl mu/m.
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Ozhegov, R., Elezov, M., Kurochkin, Y., Kurochkin, V., Divochiy, A., Kovalyuk, V., et al. (2014). Quantum key distribution over 300. In A. A. Orlikovsky (Ed.), Proc. SPIE (Vol. 9440, 1F (1 to 9)). SPIE.
Abstract: We discuss the possibility of polarization state reconstruction and measurement over 302 km by Superconducting Single- Photon Detectors (SSPDs). Because of the excellent characteristics and the possibility to be effectively coupled to singlemode optical fiber many applications of the SSPD have already been reported. The most impressive one is the quantum key distribution (QKD) over 250 km distance. This demonstration shows further possibilities for the improvement of the characteristics of quantum-cryptographic systems such as increasing the bit rate and the quantum channel length, and decreasing the quantum bit error rate (QBER). This improvement is possible because SSPDs have the best characteristics in comparison with other single-photon detectors. We have demonstrated the possibility of polarization state reconstruction and measurement over 302.5 km with superconducting single-photon detectors. The advantage of an autocompensating optical scheme, also known as “plugandplay” for quantum key distribution, is high stability in the presence of distortions along the line. To increase the distance of quantum key distribution with this optical scheme we implement the superconducting single photon detectors (SSPD). At the 5 MHz pulse repetition frequency and the average photon number equal to 0.4 we measured a 33 bit/s quantum key generation for a 101.7 km single mode ber quantum channel. The extremely low SSPD dark count rate allowed us to keep QBER at 1.6% level.
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