We are developing near-infrared/optical single photon detectors based on a current-biased
superconducting niobium (Nb) nanowire. The detectors are fabricated from high quality Nb
thin films on a sapphire substrate. We are investigating both the fundamental physics
of the detection mechanism as well as the operating performance of practical detectors.These nanowire-based detectors provide a window into strongly out-of-equilibrium superconducting 1D and quasi-1D systems. Such systems display a variety of interesting phenomena, e.g. thermal and quantum fluctuations, phase slips, and quantum phase transitions. Practically, these detectors provide single photon detection with hundreds of MHz count rates, tens of picoseconds of jitter, and negligible dark counts. This makes them useful in a variety of applications, including imaging of IR photoemission in CMOS circuitry, quantum communication, and optical spectroscopy of single molecule florescence. This work is in collaboration with Prof. A. Frydman (Bar-Ilan) and Dr. M. Rooks (Yale) and is supported by NSF-EPDT and IBM Research. Recent Publications:
- "Reset dynamics and latching in niobium superconducting nanowire single photon detectors," A.J. Annunziata, O. Quaranta, D.F. Santavicca, A. Casaburi, L. Frunzio, M. Ejrnaes, M.J. Rooks, R. Cristiano, S. Pagano, A. Frydman and D.E. Prober, J. Appl. Phys. 108, 084507 (2010).
- "Tunable superconducting nanoinductors," A.J. Annunziata, D.F. Santavicca, L. Frunzio, G. Catelani, M.J. Rooks, A. Frydman and D.E. Prober, Nanotechnology 21, 445202 (2010).
- "Niobium superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors," A.J. Annunziata, D.F. Santavicca, J.D. Chudow, L. Frunzio, M.J. Rooks, A. Frydman and D.E. Prober, IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. 19(3), 327-331 (2009).
