{"id":2829,"date":"2011-06-23T18:28:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T18:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/?p=2829"},"modified":"2011-08-02T17:15:27","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T17:15:27","slug":"timing-performance-of-superconducting-nanowire-avalanche-photodetectors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/timing-performance-of-superconducting-nanowire-avalanche-photodetectors\/","title":{"rendered":"Timing Performance of Superconducting Nanowire Avalanche Photodetectors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Figure<\/a>

Figure 1: (a) Instrument response function (IRF) of a SNAP based on two 30-nm-wide nanowires (2-SNAP). (b) Jitter of a 2-, 3-, and 4-SNAP based on 30 nm wide nanowires as a function of the normalized bias current (IB \/ ISW). (c) IRF asymmetry of the same devices as in (b).<\/p><\/div>\n

Superconducting nanowire avalanche photodetectors (SNAPs) [1<\/a>] <\/sup> are based on a parallel architecture that performs single-photon counting with higher signal-to-noise ratio (up to a factor ~4) than traditional superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) [2<\/a>] <\/sup>. Although the understanding of the operation mechanism of SNAPs was recently improved [3<\/a>] <\/sup> [4<\/a>] <\/sup>, a comprehensive study of the timing performance is still lacking. In the only study reported so far [5<\/a>] <\/sup>, SNAPs showed significantly higher timing jitter (>250\u00a0ps FWHM) than SNSPDs (~30ps FWHM [6<\/a>] <\/sup> ).<\/p>\n

We report a study of the SNAP timing performance for several device architectures and bias regimes. Our main findings were: (1) the instrument response function (IRF) shifted to longer delay times when the bias current was decreased (Figure 1.a); (2) when properly biased, SNAPs achieved the same jitter as SNSPDs\u00a0(Figure 1.b); and (3) the IRF became more asymmetric when the bias current approached the avalanche current (Figure 1.c).<\/p>\n

We simulated the electro-thermal dynamics of SNAPs using the model described in [3<\/a>] <\/sup>. While we could not explain the origin of the IRF asymmetry, the IRF shift to longer delay times was shown to be caused by a change in the electro-thermal behavior of the detectors at decreasing bias currents. We conclude that SNAPs are suitable for timing-sensitive single-photon experiments while offering a higher signal-to-noise ratio than standard SNSPDs.<\/p>\n<\/div>

  1. M. Ejrnaes et al.<\/em>, Appl. Phys. Lett<\/em>. vol. <\/strong>91, p. 262509, 2007. [↩<\/a>]<\/li>
  2. G. N. Gol’tsman et al.<\/em>, Appl. Phys. Lett<\/em>. vol. 79, p. 705, 2001. [↩<\/a>]<\/li>
  3. F. Marsili et al.<\/em>, Appl. Phys. Lett<\/em>. 98, p. 093507, 2011. [↩<\/a>] [↩<\/a>]<\/li>
  4. F. Marsili et al.<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>Nano Lett.<\/cite>, 2011<\/strong>, 11<\/em> (5), pp 2048\u20132053. [↩<\/a>]<\/li>
  5. M. Ejrnaes et al.<\/em>, Appl. <\/em>Phys. Lett.<\/em> 95, p. 132503, 2009. [↩<\/a>]<\/li>
  6. E. A. Dauler et al<\/em>., IEEE Trans. <\/em>Appl. Supercond<\/em>. vol. 17, p. 279, 2007. [↩<\/a>]<\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Superconducting nanowire avalanche photodetectors (SNAPs) [1] are based on a parallel architecture that performs single-photon counting with higher signal-to-noise ratio…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,6083,5532],"tags":[6116,4223,41],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2829"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4294,"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2829\/revisions\/4294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtlsites.mit.edu\/annual_reports\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}