We develop single-photon detectors comprising single-mode fiber-coupled superconducting nanowires, with high system detection efficiencies at a wavelength of 940 nm. The detector comprises a 6.5-nm-thick, 110-nm-wide NbN nanowire meander fabricated onto a Si substrate with a distributed Bragg reflector for enhancing the optical absorptance.We demonstrate that, via the design of a low filling factor (1/3) and active area (Φ = 10 μm), the system reaches a detection efficiency of ~60% with a dark count rate of 10 Hz, a recovery time <12 ns, and a timing jitter of ~50 ps.
MAIN TEXTThe efficient generation and detection of single photons lies at the heart of quantum information (QI) processing 1-4 . Self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) have proven to be an efficient source of single photons with high purity (99.7%) and indistinguishability (99.5%) 5 . They hold the promise of offering an excellent solid-state platform for investigations of multiphoton entanglement 1 , boson sampling 6 , and linear optical quantum computing 7 . However, a major experimental challenge 4 is the lack of high-performance detectors at the emission wavelength range of these QDs, which is typically around a wavelength of 940 nm. Silicon avalanche photodiodes (APDs) have low efficiencies (20%-30%) and long dead times (~45 ns) at a wavelength of 940 nm 5,8 , with inevitable
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