Toward single-photon detection with superconducting niobium diselenide nanowires

Abstract

We present superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) based on few-layer NbSe${}_2$ fully encapsulated with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), demonstrating single-photon sensitivity. Our fabrication process preserves the superconducting properties of NbSe${}_2$ in nanowires, as confirmed by low-temperature transport measurements that show a critical temperature of $T_c\approx 6.5$ K, comparable to the reported values for unpatterned sheets, and it maintains a contact resistance of $\sim 50\Omega$ at $T=4$ K. Meandered NbSe${}_2$ nanowires exhibit a responsivity of up to $4.9\times 10^4$ V/W over a spectral range of 650-1550 nm in a closed-cycle cryostat at 4 K, outperforming planar and short-wire devices. The devices achieve a $1/e$ recovery time of $\tau =(135\pm 36)$ ns, system timing jitter of $j_{\text{sys}}=(1103\pm 7)$ ps, and detection efficiency of $\sim 0.01\%$ at $0.95I_c$, with a linear increase in detection probability confirming the single-photon operation. Furthermore, measurements under attenuated pulsed laser (1 MHz) indicate a success rate of up to $33\%$ in detecting individual optical pulses, establishing the platform as a promising candidate for developing efficient single-photon detectors.

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Photonics in Flatland: Challenges and Opportunities for Nanophotonics with 2D Semiconductors
• Low-dimensional platforms for single photon detection