Hot-spot relaxation time current dependence in niobium nitride waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (Conference Presentation)

Simone Ferrari; Wolfram Pernice

doi:10.1117/12.2272679

18 October 2017 Hot-spot relaxation time current dependence in niobium nitride waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (Conference Presentation)

Simone Ferrari, Wolfram Pernice

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10353, Optical Sensing, Imaging, and Photon Counting: Nanostructured Devices and Applications 2017; 103530D (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2272679
Event: SPIE Nanoscience + Engineering, 2017, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

We realize fast, efficient and small footprint niobium nitride superconducting nanowire single photon detectors atop of photonic waveguides. By reducing the bias current of the nanowire, in order to break the superconductivity and trigger a detection event, more than one photon needs to be absorbed in a localized section of the wire within a very short time delay (hot-spot relaxation time), making such devices promising also for multiphoton sensing applications. We adopt a near-infrared pump-probe technique in a cryogenic environment to investigate the bias current dependence of the hot-spot relaxation time. A minimum relaxation time of (22 ± 1) ps is obtained when applying a bias current of 50% of the switching current at a bath temperature of 1.7K. Our study reveals a strong increase of the picosecond relaxation time with increasing bias current. We further adopt the same technique for determining the multi-photon detection regimes of the detector, which are in agreement with standard quantum detector tomography. In this context, we introduce a practical model and reconstruction method for determining the detector sensitivity regimes. Our work provides a complete description of the detector working operation in both number photon threshold sensitivity and time-delay sensitivity. The results allow for implementing on-chip measurement architectures for the characterization of weak classical light emitters and fast single photon sources with only one detector, driven at different biasing currents, with a drastic reduction of the time uncertainty limitations of typical correlation measurement systems.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Simone Ferrari and Wolfram Pernice "Hot-spot relaxation time current dependence in niobium nitride waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (Conference Presentation)", Proc. SPIE 10353, Optical Sensing, Imaging, and Photon Counting: Nanostructured Devices and Applications 2017, 103530D (18 October 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2272679

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KEYWORDS

Sensors

Single photon detectors

Superconductors

Niobium

Photodetectors

Photonics

Picosecond phenomena

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