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Large-Area Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors for Operation at Wavelengths up to 7.4 μm

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Published
  • Marco Colangelo
  • Alexander B. Walter
  • Boris A. Korzh
  • Ekkehart Schmidt
  • Bruce Bumble
  • Adriana E. Lita
  • Andrew D. Beyer
  • Jason P. Allmaras
  • Ryan M. Briggs
  • Alexander G. Kozorezov
  • Emma E. Wollman
  • Matthew D. Shaw
  • Karl K. Berggren
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<mark>Journal publication date</mark>27/07/2022
<mark>Journal</mark>Nano Letters
Issue number14
Volume22
Number of pages7
Pages (from-to)5667-5673
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date18/07/22
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

The optimization of superconducting thin-films has pushed the sensitivity of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) to the mid-infrared (mid-IR). Earlier demonstrations have shown that straight tungsten silicide nanowires can achieve unity internal detection efficiency (IDE) up to λ = 10 μm. For a high system detection efficiency (SDE), the active area needs to be increased, but material nonuniformity and nanofabrication-induced constrictions make mid-IR large-area meanders challenging to yield. In this work, we improve the sensitivity of superconducting materials and optimize a high-resolution nanofabrication process to demonstrate large-area SNSPDs with unity IDE at 7.4 μm. Our approach yields large-area meanders down to 50 nm width, with average line-width roughness below 10%, and with a lower impact from constrictions compared to previous demonstrations. Our methods pave the way to high-efficiency SNSPDs in the mid-IR band with potential impacts on astronomy, imaging, and physical chemistry.