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. 2024 Jan 25;124(4):10.1063/5.0178931.
doi: 10.1063/5.0178931.

A 64-pixel mid-infrared single-photon imager based on superconducting nanowire detectors

Benedikt Hampel  1   2 , Richard P Mirin  1 , Sae Woo Nam  1 , Varun B Verma  1
Affiliations

A 64-pixel mid-infrared single-photon imager based on superconducting nanowire detectors

Benedikt Hampel et al. Appl Phys Lett. .

Abstract

A large-format mid-infrared single-photon imager with very low dark count rates would enable a broad range of applications in fields like astronomy and chemistry. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are a mature photon-counting technology as demonstrated by their figures of merit such as high detection efficiencies and very low dark count rates. However, scaling SNSPDs to large array sizes for mid-infrared applications requires sophisticated readout architectures in addition to superconducting materials development. In this work, an SNSPD array design that combines a thermally coupled row-column multiplexing architecture with a thermally coupled time-of-flight transmission line was developed for mid-infrared applications. The design requires only six cables and can be scaled to larger array sizes. The demonstration of a 64-pixel array shows promising results for wavelengths between 3.4 μm and 10 μm, which will enable the use of this single-photon detector technology for a broad range of new applications.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest The authors have no conflicts to disclose.

Figures

FIG. 1:
FIG. 1:
Micrographs of a 64-pixel mid-infrared-optimized SNSPD array. (a) Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the thermal coupling from the SNSPDs (false colored in red) to the transmission line (false colored in blue). (b) SEM of a single pixel with interleaved row (false colored in red) and column (false colored in green) SNSPDs. (c) Circuit diagram of the bias current network that connects to the SNSPD array (red) and is thermally coupled to the transmission line (blue). The labels are further explained in the main text. (d) Photomicrograph of six SNSPD pixels with highlighted current paths for one column (green) and one row (red).
FIG. 2:
FIG. 2:
Photon count rate (PCR) and dark count rate (DCR) in counts per second (cps). Panels (a) and (c) show measurements on the row transmission line with (a) row bias varied, columns unbiased and (c) row bias varied, columns biased at 30 μA. Panels (b) and (d) show measurements on the column transmission line with (b) column bias varied, rows unbiased and (d) column bias varied, rows biased at 30 μA. The blue vertical dotted lines in (a) and (b) indicate the bias current at which the thermal light source was adjusted to obtain 100 kcps and in (c) and (d) at which the rows and columns were operated for the measurements presented in Fig. 3.
FIG. 3:
FIG. 3:
Histograms of a 1 s time tagger measurement at the row and column transmission line for the thermal light source with narrow bandwidth filters at (a) 3.4 μm, (b) 5.3 μm, (c) 7.4 μm, and (d) 10 μm.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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