Suppressed critical current in superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors with high fill-factors

Joel K W Yang, Andrew J. Kerman, Eric A. Dauler, Bryan Cord, Vikas Anant, Richard J. Molnar, Karl K. Berggren

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this work we present a new fabrication process that enabled the fabrication of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors SNSPD with fill-factors as high as 88% with gaps between nanowires as small as 12 nm. This fabrication process combined high-resolution electron-beam lithography with photolithography. Although this work was motivated by the potential of increased detection efficiency with higher fill-factor devices, test results showed an unexpected systematic suppression in device critical currents with increasing fill-factor.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number5152994
Pages (from-to)318-322
Number of pages5
JournalIEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
Volume19
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2009

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Manuscript received January 13, 2009. First published June 30, 2009; current version published July 10, 2009. This work was sponsored by the US Air Force under Air Force Contract FA8721-05-C-0002 and by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). J. K. W. Yang was supported by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Singapore. J. K. W. Yang, B. Cord and K. K. Berggren are with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA (e-mail: [email protected]). A. J. Kerman, E. A. Dauler and R. J. Molnar are with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA 02420, USA. V. Anant is with Exponent, Inc., Natick, MA 01760, USA. He was with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA. Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2009.2017953

Keywords

  • Critical current
  • Detection efficiency
  • Fabrication
  • Single-photon detectors

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