Low kinetic inductance superconducting MgB2 nanowires with a 130 ps relaxation time for single-photon detection applications

Properties of superconducting nanowires set the performance level for Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors (SNSPD). Reset time in commonly employed large area SNSPDs,5-10ns,is known to be limited by the nanowires kinetic inductance.On the other hand, reduction of the kinetic inductance in small area (waveguide integrated) SNSPDs prevents biasing them close to the critical current due to latching into a permanent resistive state.In order to reduce the reset time in SNSPDs, superconducting nanowires with both low kinetic inductance and fast electron energy relaxation are required. In this paper, we report on narrow (15-100nm) and long (up to 120 $\mu$m) superconducting $MgB_{2}$ nanowires offering such combination of properties.In 5 nm-thick $MgB_{2}$ films, grown using Hybrid Physical Chemical Vapor Deposition, the electron relaxation time was 12ps, the critical temperature was 32K, and the critical current density was 5x$10^{7}$ A/$cm^{2}$ (at 4.8K). Using microwave reflectometry, we measured a kinetic inductance of Lk0(4.8K)=1.3-1.6 pH/sqr regardless of the nanowire width, which results in a magnetic field penetration depth of 90 nm. These values are very close to those in pristine $MgB_{2}$. For 120 $\mu$m long nanowires the response time was only 100ps, i.e. 1/80 of that in previously reported NbN nanowire photon detectors of similar dimensions.