Amorphous solid

Detector

Engineering

Jitter

Materials science

Photon counting

Telecommunications

Computer science

Nanowire

Photon

Physics

Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

Optics

Superconductivity

Electronic engineering

Condensed matter physics

Chemistry

Optoelectronics

Applied Physics Letters

Recent progress in the development of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) made of amorphous materials has delivered excellent performances and has had a great impact on a range of research fields. Despite showing the highest system detection efficiency (SDE) ever reported with SNSPDs, amorphous materials typically lead to lower critical currents, which have impacts on their jitter performance. Combining a very low jitter and a high SDE remains a challenge. Here, we report on highly efficient superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors based on amorphous MoSi, combining system jitters as low as 26 ps and a SDE of 80% at 1550 nm. We also report detailed observations on the jitter behaviour, which hints at intrinsic limitations and leads to practical implications for SNSPD performance.

High-detection efficiency and low-timing jitter with amorphous superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors