SuSiPOD · Broadband Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2015-07-01 → 2017-06-30
- EU contribution
- €173,076
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Broadband Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors
Single-photon detection is an emerging technology, with applications ranging from medical imaging and LIDAR systems to space communication and fundamental quantum optics. Moreover, single-photon detectors are considered an enabling technology for the development of quantum information science, and the quantum computer. Currently, single-photon detection is carried out using semiconductor-based avalanche photodiodes; however, this technology is limited by large timing jitter, unavoidable dark counts, afterpulsing, and limited detection efficiency. A recently proposed alternative relies on a superconducting nanowire biased just below its critical current, so that an impinging photon triggers a transition from the superconducting to the normal state, resulting in a voltage spike at the nanowire leads. Superconductivity is then recovered within a few nanoseconds. The detection efficiency can be boosted close to 100% by coupling the superconducting nanowire to the evanescent field propagating in a waveguide. However, the fabrication of high quality, ultrathin superconducting layers is challenging (e.g., the critical temperature of superconducting NbN thin films on silicon is typically about 10 K, compared to 16 K for bulk NbN), and the operation wavelength of such devices is limited by the waveguide band gap. We have identified GaN/AlN as the best suited waveguide material system, approximately lattice matched with NbN, and with a transparent band from 400 to 6000 nm. The target of the SuSiPOD project is the establishment of a technology platform for the fabrication of a new generation of broadband superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors built on III-nitride waveguides, in which photons are coupled laterally with the help of a tapered optical fibre. This new geometry should allow near-unity absorption probability in a wide spectral range, since the substrate is transparent to visible and infrared light. The project success will be proven by the realization of a working prototype which will greatly outperform state-of-the-art single-photon detectors.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Single-photon detection is an emerging technology, with applications ranging from medical imaging and LIDAR systems to space communication and fundamental quantum optics. Moreover, single-photon detectors are considered an enabling technology for the development of quantum information science, paving the way for the realization of one of the main challenges of the 21st century: the quantum computer. Currently, single-photon detection is carried out using semiconductor-based avalanche photodiodes; however, this technology is limited by large timing jitter, unavoidable dark counts, after pulsing, and limited detection efficiency. A recently proposed alternative relies on a superconducting nanowire biased just below its critical current, so that an impinging photon triggers a transition from the superconducting to the normal state, resulting in a voltage spike at the nanowire leads. The detection efficiency can be boosted close to unity by coupling the superconducting nanowire to the evanescent field propagating in a waveguide. However, the fabrication of high quality, ultra-thin superconducting layers is challenging, and the operation wavelength of such devices is limited by the waveguide band gap. We have identified GaN/AlN as the best suited waveguide material system, approximately lattice matched with NbN, and with a transparent band from 400 to 6000 nm. The target of the SuSiPOD project is the establishment of a technology platform for the fabrication of a new generation of broadband superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors built on III-nitride waveguides, in which photons are coupled laterally with the help of a tapered optical fibre. This new geometry should allow near-unity absorption probability in a wide spectral range, since the substrate is transparent to visible and infrared light. The project success will be proven by the realization of a working prototype which will greatly outperform state-of-the-art single-photon detectors.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES · ParisCoordinatorFrance
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union