Ultimate low system dark count rate for superconducting nanowire single-photon detector

Abstract

The dark count rate (DCR) is a key parameter of single-photon detectors. By introducing a bulk optical band-pass filter mounted on a fiber-to-fiber optical bench cooled at 3 K and blocking down to 5 micrometer, we suppressed the DCR of a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector by more than three orders of magnitude. The DCR is limited by the blackbody radiation through a signal passband of 20 nm bandwidth. The figure of merit, system detection efficiency, and DCR were 2.7 x 10^11, 2.3 %, and 0.001 Hz, respectively. Narrowing the bandwidth to 100 GHz suppresses the DCR to 0.0001 Hz and the figure of merit increases to 1.8 x 10^12.

to appear in Optics Letters

References in corpus (9)

• Detecting Single Infrared Photons with 93% System Efficiency
• Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors: physics and applications
• Quantum key distribution over 40 dB channel loss using superconducting single photon detectors
• 2-GHz clock quantum key distribution over 260 km of standard telecom fiber
• Quantum key distribution over a 72 dB channel loss using ultralow dark count superconducting single-photon detectors
• Superconducting nanowire single photon detector with on-chip bandpass filter
• Temperature Dependent Performances of Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors in an Ultralow-Temperature Region
• Superconducting nanowire single-photon detector with ultralow dark count rate using cold optical filters
• Dark counts of superconducting nanowire single-photon detector under illumination

Cited by in corpus (43)

• Superconducting nanowire for single-photon detection: progress, challenges and opportunities
• The Evolution of Quantum Secure Direct Communication: On the Road to the Qinternet
• A scalable multi-photon coincidence detector based on superconducting nanowires
• Entangling metropolitan-distance separated quantum memories
• Superconducting microstrip single-photon detector with system detection efficiency over 90% at 1550 nm
• Superconducting single-photon detectors with saturated dependence of quantum efficiency vs. bias current
• GHz detection rates and dynamic photon-number resolution with superconducting nanowire arrays
• Epitaxial niobium nitride superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors
• Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors fabricated from atomic-layer-deposited NbN
• Universal Model for the Turn-on Dynamics of Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors
• Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in optomechanics
• Direct measurement of the recovery time of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors
• Enhanced Detection Rate and High Photon-Number Efficiencies with a Scalable Parallel SNSPD
• Sub-shot-noise-limited phase estimation via SU(1,1) interferometer with thermal states
• Photoresponse of La${}_{1.85}$Sr${}_{0.15}$CuO${}_4$ nanostrip
• Superconducting nanowires as high-rate photon detectors in strong magnetic fields
• Certifying the presence of a photonic qubit by splitting it in two
• Optomechanical dark matter instrument for direct detection
• Sputtered NbN Films for Ultrahigh Performance Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors
• Self-aligned multi-channel superconducting nanowire avalanche photodetector
• Challenges in Scientific Data Communication from Low-Mass Interstellar Probes
• Nanosecond gating of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors using cryogenic bias circuitry
• Millimeter-scale active area superconducting microstrip single-photon detector fabricated by ultraviolet photolithography
• Detection of gravitational waves in circular particle accelerators
• Current-Crowding-Free Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors
• Emergence of the Born rule in quantum optics
• Quantum detector tomography of a high dynamic-range superconducting nanowire single-photon detector
• Site-Selective Enhancement of Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors via Local Helium Ion Irradiation
• A 16-channel fiber array-coupled superconducting single-photon detector array with average system detection efficiency over 60% at telecom wavelength
• How to read out the phonon number statistics via resonance fluorescence spectroscopy of a single-photon emitter
• Nanowire bolometer using a 2D high-temperature superconductor
• Linearly Multiplexed Photon Number Resolving Single-photon Detectors Array
• Photon counting for axion interferometry
• Mid-infrared single photon detector with superconductor Mo${}_{80}$Si${}_{20}$ nanowire
• Heterodyne spectrometer sensitivity limit for quantum networking
• Origin of performance enhancement of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors by He-ion irradiation
• Optimizing QKD efficiency by addressing chromatic dispersion and time measurement uncertainty
• Design of micron-long superconducting nanowire perfect absorber for efficient high speed single-photon detection
• Impulse Response Characterization of a Commercial Multimode Fiber using Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors
• Advancing the heralded photon-number-state characterization by understanding the interplay of experimental settings
• Markov chain Monte Carlo Detector Tomography applied to a NbTiN nanobridge
• Low-dimensional platforms for single photon detection
• Photon Efficiency Limits in the Presence of Background Noise