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Sprengers, J. P., Gaggero, A., Sahin, D., Nejad, S. J., Mattioli, F., Leoni, R., et al. (2011). Waveguide single-photon detectors for integrated quantum photonic circuits. arXiv, , 11.
Abstract: he generation, manipulation and detection of quantum bits (qubits) encoded on single photons is at the heart of quantum communication and optical quantum information processing. The combination of single-photon sources, passive optical circuits and single-photon detectors enables quantum repeaters and qubit amplifiers, and also forms the basis of all-optical quantum gates and of linear-optics quantum computing. However, the monolithic integration of sources, waveguides and detectors on the same chip, as needed for scaling to meaningful number of qubits, is very challenging, and previous work on quantum photonic circuits has used external sources and detectors. Here we propose an approach to a fully-integrated quantum photonic circuit on a semiconductor chip, and demonstrate a key component of such circuit, a waveguide single-photon detector. Our detectors, based on superconducting nanowires on GaAs ridge waveguides, provide high efficiency (20%) at telecom wavelengths, high timing accuracy (60 ps), response time in the ns range, and are fully compatible with the integration of single-photon sources, passive networks and modulators.
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Hadfield, R. H. (2009). Single-photon detectors for optical quantum information applications. Nature Photonics, 3, 696–705.
Abstract: The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in interest in new single-photon detector technologies. A major cause of this trend has undoubtedly been the push towards optical quantum information applications such as quantum key distribution. These new applications place extreme demands on detector performance that go beyond the capabilities of established single-photon detectors. There has been considerable effort to improve conventional photon-counting detectors and to transform new device concepts into workable technologies for optical quantum information applications. This Review aims to highlight the significant recent progress made in improving single-photon detector technologies, and the impact that these developments will have on quantum optics and quantum information science.
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Murphy, A., Semenov, A., Korneev, A., Korneeva, Y., Gol'tsman, G., & Bezryadin, A. (2015). Three temperature regimes in superconducting photon detectors: quantum, thermal and multiple phase-slips as generators of dark counts. Sci. Rep., 5, 10174 (1 to 10).
Abstract: We perform measurements of the switching current distributions of three w approximately 120 nm wide, 4 nm thick NbN superconducting strips which are used for single-photon detectors. These strips are much wider than the diameter of the vortex cores, so they are classified as quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D). We discover evidence of macroscopic quantum tunneling by observing the saturation of the standard deviation of the switching distributions at temperatures around 2 K. We analyze our results using the Kurkijarvi-Garg model and find that the escape temperature also saturates at low temperatures, confirming that at sufficiently low temperatures, macroscopic quantum tunneling is possible in quasi-2D strips and can contribute to dark counts observed in single photon detectors. At the highest temperatures the system enters a multiple phase-slip regime. In this range single phase-slips are unable to produce dark counts and the fluctuations in the switching current are reduced.
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Delacour, C., Claudon, J., Poizat, J. - P., Pannetier, B., Bouchiat, V., de Lamaestre, R. E., et al. (2007). Superconducting single photon detectors made by local oxidation with an atomic force microscope. Appl. Phys. Lett., 90(19), 191116 (1 t0 3).
Abstract: The authors present a fabrication technique of superconducting single photon detectors made by local oxidation of niobium nitride ultrathin films. Narrow superconducting meander lines are obtained by direct writing of insulating niobium oxynitride lines through the films using voltage-biased tip of an atomic force microscope. Due to the 30nm resolution of the lithographic technique, the filling factor of the meander line can be made substantially higher than detector of similar geometry made by electron beam lithography, thus leading to increased quantum efficiency. Single photon detection regime of these devices is demonstrated at 4.2K.
The authors thank J.-P. Maneval for stimulating discussions. This work has been partly supported by ACI Nanoscience from French Ministry of Research, D.G.A., by Grant No. 02.445.11.7434 of Russian Ministry of Education and Science, and by the European Commission under project “SINPHONIA,” Contract No. NMP4-CT-2005-16433.
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Минаева, О. В. (2009). Быстродействующий однофотонный детектор на основе тонкой сверхпроводниковой пленки NbN. Ph.D. thesis, , .
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Манова, Н. Н., Корнеева, Ю. П., Корнеев, А. А., Слыш, В., Воронов, Б. М., & Гольцман, Г. Н. (2011). Сверхпроводниковый NbN однофотонный детектор, интегрированный с четвертьволновым резонатором. ПЖТФ, 37(10), 7.
Abstract: Исследована спектральная зависимость квантовой эффективности сверхпроводниковых NbN однофотонных детекторов, интегрированных с оптическими четвертьволновыми резонаторами с использованием диэлектриков Si3N4, SiO2, SiO.
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Korneeva, Y., Florya, I., Semenov, A., Korneev, A., & Goltsman, G. (2011). New generation of nanowire NbN superconducting single-photon detector for mid-infrared. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., 21(3), 323–326.
Abstract: We present a break-through approach to mid-infrared single-photon detection based on nanowire NbN superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPD). Although SSPD became a mature technology for telecom wavelengths (1.3-1.55 μm) its further expansion to mid-infrared wavelength was hampered by low sensitivity above 2 μm. We managed to overcome this limit by reducing the nanowire width to 50 nm, while retaining high superconducting properties and connecting the wires in parallel to produce a voltage response of sufficient magnitude. The new device exhibits 10 times better quantum efficiency at 3.5 μm wavelength than the “standard” SSPD.
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Feautrier, P., le Coarer, E., Espiau de Lamaestre, R., Cavalier, P., Maingault, L., Villégier, J. - C., et al. (2008). High-speed superconducting single photon detectors for innovative astronomical applications. In J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. (Vol. 97, 10).
Abstract: Superconducting Single Photon Detectors (SSPD) are now mature enough to provide extremely interesting detector performances in term of sensitivity, speed, and geometry in the visible and near infrared wavelengths. Taking advantage of recent results obtained in the Sinphonia project, the goal of our research is to demonstrate the feasibility of a new family of micro-spectrometers, called SWIFTS (Stationary Wave Integrated Fourier Transform Spectrometer), associated to an array of SSPD, the whole assembly being integrated on a monolithic sapphire substrate coupling the detectors array to a waveguide injecting the light. This unique association will create a major breakthrough in the domain of visible and infrared spectroscopy for all applications where the space and weight of the instrument is limited. SWIFTS is an innovative way to achieve very compact spectro-detectors using nano-detectors coupled to evanescent field of dielectric integrated optics. The system is sensitive to the interferogram inside the dielectric waveguide along the propagation path. Astronomical instruments will be the first application of such SSPD spectrometers. In this paper, we describes in details the fabrication process of our SSPD built at CEA/DRFMC using ultra-thin NbN epitaxial films deposited on different orientations of Sapphire substrates having state of the art superconducting characteristics. Electron beam lithography is routinely used for patterning the devices having line widths below 200 nm and down to 70 nm. An experimental set-up has been built and used to test these SSPD devices and evaluate their photon counting performances. Photon counting performances of our devices have been demonstrated with extremely low dark counts giving excellent signal to noise ratios. The extreme compactness of this concept is interesting for space spectroscopic applications. Some new astronomical applications of such concept are proposed in this paper.
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Terai, H., Miki, S., Yamashita, T., Makise, K., & Wang, Z. (2010). Demonstration of single-flux-quantum readout operation for superconducting single-photon detectors. Appl. Phys. Lett., 97(11), 3.
Abstract: A readout circuit using superconducting single-flux-quantum (SFQ) circuits has been developed to realize an independently addressable array of superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPDs). We tested the SFQ readout circuits by connecting with SSPDs. The error rates of readout circuits were below 10–5 for input signal amplitude of greater than 18.2 μA. Detection efficiencies (DEs) for single-photon incidents were measured both with and without the connection of a readout circuit. The observed DEs traced almost the same curves regardless of the connection of the readout circuit, except that the SSPD is likely to latch by connecting the readout circuit.
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Korneev, A., Korneeva, Y., Florya, I., Elezov, M., Manova, N., Tarkhov, M., et al. (2011). Recent advances in superconducting NbN single-photon detector development. In Proc. SPIE (Vol. 8072, 807202 (1 to 10)).
Abstract: Superconducting single-photon detector (SSPD) is a planar nanostructure patterned from 4-nm-thick NbN film deposited on sapphire substrate. The sensitive element of the SSPD is 100-nm-wide NbN strip. The device is operated at liquid helium temperature. Absorption of a photon leads to a local suppression of superconductivity producing subnanosecond-long voltage pulse. In infrared (at 1550 nm and longer wavelengths) SSPD outperforms avalanche photodiodes in terms of detection efficiency (DE), dark counts rate, maximum counting rate and timing jitter. Efficient single-mode fibre coupling of the SSPD enabled its usage in many applications ranging from single-photon sources research to quantum cryptography. Recently we managed to improve the SSPD performance and measured 25% detection efficiency at 1550 nm wavelength and dark counts rate of 10 s-1. We also improved photon-number resolving SSPD (PNR-SSPD) which realizes a spatial multiplexing of incident photons enabling resolving of up to 4 simultaneously absorbed photons. Another improvement is the increase of the photon absorption using a λ/4 microcavity integrated with the SSPD. And finally in our strive to increase the DE at longer wavelengths we fabricated SSPD with the strip almost twice narrower compared to the standard 100 nm and demonstrated that in middle infrared (about 3 μm wavelength) these devices have DE several times higher compared to the traditional SSPDs.
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Driessen, E. F. C. (2009). Coupling light to periodic nanostructures. Fac. Scien., Leiden Un., , 144.
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Wang, Z., Miki, S., & Fujiwara, M. (2009). Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors for quantum information and communications. IEEE J. Sel. Topics Quantum Electron., 15(6), 1741–1747.
Abstract: Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs or SSPD) are highly promising devices in the growing field of quantum information and communications technology. We have developed a practical SSPD system with our superconducting thin films and devices fabrication, optical coupling packaging, and cryogenic technology. The SSPD system consists of six-channel SSPD devices and a compact Gifford-McMahon (GM) cryocooler, and can operate continuously on 100 V ac power without the need for any cryogens. The SSPD devices were fabricated from high-quality niobium nitride (NbN) ultrathin films that were epitaxially grown on single-crystal MgO substrates. The packaged SSPD devices were temperature stabilized to 2.96 K ± 10 mK. The system detection efficiency for an SSPD device with an area of 20 × 20 ¿m2 was found to be 2.6% and 4.5% at wavelengths of 1550 and 1310 nm, respectively, at a dark count rate of 100 Hz, and a jitter of 100 ps full-width at half maximum. We also performed ultrafast BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) field testing and entanglement-based QKD experiments using these SSPD devices.
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Gaggero, A., Nejad, S. J., Marsili, F., Mattioli, F., Leoni, R., Bitauld, D., et al. (2010). Nanowire superconducting single-photon detectors on GaAs for integrated quantum photonic applications. Appl. Phys. Lett., 97(15), 3.
Abstract: We demonstrate efficient nanowire superconducting single photon detectors (SSPDs) based on NbN thin films grown on GaAs. NbN films ranging from 3 to 5 nm in thickness have been deposited by dc magnetron sputtering on GaAs substrates at 350 °C. These films show superconducting properties comparable to similar films grown on sapphire and MgO. In order to demonstrate the potential for monolithic integration, SSPDs were fabricated and measured on GaAs/AlAs Bragg mirrors, showing a clear cavity enhancement, with a peak quantum efficiency of 18.3% at λ = 1300 nm and T = 4.2 K.
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Engel, A., Aeschbacher, A., Inderbitzin, K., Schilling, A., Il'in, K., Hofherr, M., et al. (2011). Tantalum nitride superconducting single-photon detectors with low cut-off energy. arXiv, , 9.
Abstract: Materials with a small superconducting energy gap favor a high detection efficiency of low-energy photons in superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. We developed a TaN detector with smaller gap and lower density of states at the Fermi energy than in comparable NbN devices, while other relevant parameters remain essentially unchanged. This results in a reduction of the minimum photon energy required for direct detection to $\approx1/3$ as compared to NbN.
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Dorenbos, S. N., Heeres, R. W., Driessen, E. F. C., & Zwiller, V. (2011). Efficient and robust fiber coupling of superconducting single photon detectors. arXiv, , 6.
Abstract: We applied a recently developed fiber coupling technique to superconducting single photon detectors (SSPDs). As the detector area of SSPDs has to be kept as small as possible, coupling to an optical fiber has been either inefficient or unreliable. Etching through the silicon substrate allows fabrication of a circularly shaped chip which self aligns to the core of a ferrule terminated fiber in a fiber sleeve. In situ alignment at cryogenic temperatures is unnecessary and no thermal stress during cooldown, causing misalignment, is induced. We measured the quantum efficiency of these devices with an attenuated tunable broadband source. The combination of a lithographically defined chip and high precision standard telecommunication components yields near unity coupling efficiency and a system detection efficiency of 34% at a wavelength of 1200 nm. This quantum efficiency measurement is confirmed by an absolute efficiency measurement using correlated photon pairs (with $\lambda$ = 1064 nm) produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The efficiency obtained via this method agrees well with the efficiency measured with the attenuated tunable broadband source.
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