A waveguide-integrated superconducting nanowire single-photon detector with a spot-size converter on a Si photonics platform

We report a high system detection-efficiency superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) with a spot-size converter (SSC) on a Si photonics platform. The NbN-SNSPD is evanescently coupled to the Si waveguide and connected to the optical fibre through the low-loss SSC comprising a Si inverse taper and large silica-based core. The fabricated SNSPD chip was assembled on a low-loss fibre-coupled module. The fibre coupling loss of the module is remarkably small (1.9 dB/facet). The fabricated SNSPD module shows system detection efficiency of 32% with the dark count rate of 95 Hz and timing jitter of 75 ps. The measured system detection efficiency is over ten times larger than that of previous waveguide-integrated SNSPDs on the Si platform. The noise equivalent power reaches 3.6 × 10−18 W Hz−1/2, and the figure of merit reaches 1.9 × 108.

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