Superconducting single photon detectors integrated with diamond nanophotonic circuits

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates integrated diamond nanophotonic circuits with superconducting single photon detectors achieving high efficiency, low dark counts, and good timing resolution, advancing scalable quantum photonic technologies.

Contribution

It introduces the first monolithically integrated diamond nanophotonic circuits with superconducting nanowire single photon detectors, achieving high efficiency and scalability.

Findings

Detection efficiency up to 66%

Low dark count rates

Timing resolution of 190 ps

Abstract

Photonic quantum technologies promise to repeat the success of integrated nanophotonic circuits in non-classical applications. Using linear optical elements, quantum optical computations can be performed with integrated optical circuits and thus allow for overcoming existing limitations in terms of scalability. Besides passive optical devices for realizing photonic quantum gates, active elements such as single photon sources and single photon detectors are essential ingredients for future optical quantum circuits. Material systems which allow for the monolithic integration of all components are particularly attractive, including III-V semiconductors, silicon and also diamond. Here we demonstrate nanophotonic integrated circuits made from high quality polycrystalline diamond thin films in combination with on-chip single photon detectors. Using superconducting nanowires coupled evanescently to travelling waves we achieve high detection efficiencies up to 66 % combined with low dark count rates and timing resolution of 190 ps. Our devices are fully scalable and hold promise for functional diamond photonic quantum devices.