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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Goltsman, G. N., Korneev, A. A., Finkel, M. I., Divochiy, A. V., Florya, I. N., Korneeva, Y. P., et al. (2010). Superconducting hot-electron bolometer as THz mixer, direct detector and IR single-photon counter. In 35th Int. Conf. Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (p. 1).
Abstract: We present a new generation of superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPDs) and hot-electron superconducting sensors with record characteristic for many terahertz and optical applications.
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Korneeva, Y. P., Mikhailov, M. Y., Pershin, Y. P., Manova, N. N., Divochiy, A. V., Vakhtomin, Y. B., et al. (2014). Superconducting single-photon detector made of MoSi film. Supercond. Sci. Technol., 27(9), 095012.
Abstract: We fabricated and characterized nanowire superconducting single-photon detectors made of 4 nm thick amorphous Mox Si1−x films. At 1.7 K the best devices exhibit a detection efficiency (DE) up to 18% at 1.2 $\mu {\rm m}$ wavelength of unpolarized light, a characteristic response time of about 6 ns and timing jitter of 120 ps. The DE was studied in wavelength range from 650 nm to 2500 nm. At wavelengths below 1200 nm these detectors reach their maximum DE limited by photon absorption in the thin MoSi film.
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Sidorova, M. V., Divochiy, A. V., Vakhtomin, Y. B., & Smirnov, K. V. (2015). Ultrafast superconducting single-photon detector with a reduced active area coupled to a tapered lensed single-mode fiber. J. Nanophoton., 9(1), 093051.
Abstract: This paper presents an ultrafast niobium nitride (NbN) superconducting single-photon detector (SSPD) with an active area of 3×3 μm2 that offers better timing performance metrics than the previous SSPD with an active area of 7×7 μm2. The improved SSPD demonstrates a record timing jitter (<25 ps), an ultrashort recovery time (<2 ns), an extremely low dark count rate, and a high detection efficiency in a wide spectral range from visible part to near infrared. The record parameters were obtained due to the development of a new technique providing effective optical coupling between a detector with a reduced active area and a standard single-mode telecommunication fiber. The advantages of the new approach are experimentally confirmed by taking electro-optical measurements.
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Smirnov, K., Vachtomin, Y., Divochiy, A., Antipov, A., & Goltsman, G. (2015). Dependence of dark count rates in superconducting single photon detectors on the filtering effect of standard single mode optical fibers. Appl. Phys. Express, 8(2), 022501 (1 to 4).
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