SAMOP 2023 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 35: Quantum Optics: Cavity and Waveguide QED II

Q 35.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 8, 2023, 15:00–15:15, E001

Waveguide-coupled superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors enhanced by subwavelength grating metamaterials — •Alejandro Sánchez-Postigo, Connor Graham-Scott, and Carsten Schuck — Institute of Physics, University of Münster, Heisenbergstraße 11, 48149 Münster, Germany

Waveguide-coupled superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) have developed into one of the most attractive single-photon detector technologies for integrated quantum photonics. Embedding ultra-short, transversally oriented superconducting nanowires within optical cavities have enabled waveguide-coupled SNSPDs with ultra-fast reset times and low timing jitter. However, actual devices exhibit on-chip detection efficiencies (OCDE) as low as 30%, mainly due to scattering loss in the crossing between the waveguide and the slab that supports the nanowire.

Subwavelength grating (SWG) metamaterials are periodic structures that, patterned at a scale that is smaller than the operating wavelength, allow for synthesizing artificial materials with tailored refractive index. In the last years, SWG structures have enabled many silicon photonics devices with unprecedented performance, including waveguides, fiber-chip couplers and filters. These promising metamaterials hold great potential for engineering the integration of SNSPDs with nanophotonic waveguides and tailoring the detector performance.

Here we show our progress on integrating, for the first time, SNSPDs with SWG structures, with the aim of reducing the scattering loss of the former and hence increasing their OCDE.