Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors on aluminum nitride photonic integrated circuits

Abstract

With recent advances in integrated single-photon sources and quantum memories, onchip integration of high-performance single-photon detectors becomes increasingly important. The superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) is the leading single-photon counting technology for quantum information processing. Among various waveguide materials, aluminum nitride (AlN) is a promising candidate because of its exceptionally wide bandgap, and intrinsic piezoelectric and electro-optic properties. In this Master's thesis, we developed a complete fabrication process for making high-performance niobium nitride SNSPDs on AlN, and demonstrated their integration with AlN photonic waveguides. The detectors fabricated on this new substrate material have demonstrated saturated detection efficiency from visible to near-IR, sub-60-ps timing jitter, and ~6 ns reset time. This work will contribute towards building a fully integrated quantum photonic processor.