High efficiency, large-active-area superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors

Niobium nitride superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors were fabricated on thermally oxidized silicon substrates with large active areas of 30 μm × 30 μm. To achieve non-constricted detectors, we improved the film growth and electron beam lithography process to fabricate uniform 100-nm wide NbN nanowires with a fill factor of 50%. The devices showed 72.4% system detection efficiency (SDE) at 100-Hz dark count rate (DCR) and 74-ps timing jitter, measured at the fiber communication wavelength of 1550 nm. The highest SDE which is 81.2% when the DCR is ~700 c/s appears at the wavelength of 1650 nm.