Fabrication Process Yielding Saturated Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors With 24-ps Jitter

Abstract

We present an optimized fabrication process for superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors that allowed us to obtain a yield of ~70% for detectors based on 80-nm-wide niobium nitride nanowires. We fabricated detectors that showed 24-ps timing jitter and saturated detection efficiency without the need for cryogenic amplifiers, allowing for operation in a low-bias low-dark-count-rate regime while operating at maximum detection efficiency.