Free-space-coupled superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors for infrared optical communications
Name
Berggren_Free-space-coupled.pdf
Size
679.15 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5e9899307fb587d5ddd91d580ef3c93d
Author(s)
Bellei, Francesco
Cartwright, Alyssa P.
McCaughan, Adam N
Dane, Andrew E.
Najafi, Faraz
Zhao, Qingyuan
Berggren, Karl K
Date Issued
February 2016
Journal
Optics Express
Publisher
Optical Society of America
Citation
Bellei, Francesco; Cartwright, Alyssa P.; McCaughan, Adam N et al. “Free-Space-Coupled Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors for Infrared Optical Communications.” Optics Express 24, 4 (February 2016): 3248-3257. © 2016 Optical Society of America
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
This paper describes the construction of a cryostat and an optical system with a free-space coupling efficiency of 56.5% ± 3.4% to a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) for infrared quantum communication and spectrum analysis. A 1K pot decreases the base temperature to T= 1.7 K from the 2.9 K reached by the cold head cooled by a pulse-tube cryocooler. The minimum spot size coupled to the detector chip was 6.6 ± 0.11 μm starting from a fiber source at wavelength, λ = 1.55 μm. We demonstrated photon counting on a detector with an 8 × 7.3 μm² area. We measured a dark count rate of 95 ± 3.35 kcps and a system detection efficiency of 1.64% ± 0.13%. We explain the key steps that are required to improve further the coupling efficiency.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.24.003248
