Fabrication and Characterization of Superconducting NbN Nanowire Single Photon Detectors

Author

Stern, Jeffrey A. ; Farr, William H.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., Pasadena

Volume

17

Issue

2

fYear

2007

fDate

6/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

306

Lastpage

309

Abstract

We report on the fabrication and characterization of high-speed, single photon detectors using superconducting NbN nanowires at a wavelength of 1064 nm. A 15 by 15 microns detector with a detector efficiency of 40% has been measured. Due to kinetic inductance, the recovery time of such large area detectors is longer than that of smaller or single wire detectors. The recovery time of our detectors (50 ns) has been characterized by measuring the inter-arrival time statistics of our detector.

Keywords

nanowires; niobium compounds; optical fabrication; superconducting device testing; superconducting materials; superconducting photodetectors; superconducting thin films; NbN - Interface; detector efficiency; inter-arrival time statistics measurement; kinetic inductance; recovery time; single photon detector fabrication; size 15 micron; superconducting NbN nanowire; wavelength 1064 nm; Critical current; Detectors; Fabrication; Kinetic theory; Radio frequency; Substrates; Superconducting filaments and wires; Superconducting films; Superconducting photodetectors; Wavelength measurement; NbN; SNSPD; single photon detector;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Applied Superconductivity, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1051-8223

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TASC.2007.898060

Filename

4277734