High performance fiber-coupled NbTiN superconducting nanowire single photon detectors with Gifford-McMahon cryocooler

TL;DR

This paper reports the development of fiber-coupled NbTiN superconducting nanowire single photon detectors with high efficiency and low dark counts, operable with a practical Gifford-McMahon cryocooler, suitable for quantum optics applications.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates high-performance fiber-coupled NbTiN SNSPDs with over 67% efficiency using a Gifford-McMahon cryocooler, advancing practical quantum photon detection.

Findings

System detection efficiency of 74% for the best device.

Dark count rate of 100 counts per second.

Timing jitter of 68 ps.

Abstract

We present high performance fiber-coupled niobium titanium nitride superconducting nanowire single photon detectors fabricated on thermally oxidized silicon substrates. The best device showed a system detection efficiency (DE) of 74%, dark count rate of 100 c/s, and full width at half maximum timing jitter of 68 ps under a bias current of 18.0 uA with a practical Gifford-McMahon cryocooler system. We also introduced six detectors into the cryocooler and confirmed that the system DE of all detectors was higher than 67% at the dark count rate of 100 c/s.