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arXiv · 2503.22670

Toward single-photon detection with superconducting niobium diselenide nanowires

Pietro Metuh·Athanasios Paralikis·Paweł Wyborski·Sherwan Jamo·Alessandro Palermo·Lucio Zugliani·Matteo Barbone·Kai Müller·Niels Gregersen·Saulius Vaitiekėnas·Jonathan Finley·Battulga Munkhbat
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Abstract

We present superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) based on few-layer NbSe$_2$ fully encapsulated with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), demonstrating single-photon sensitivity. Our fabrication process preserves the superconducting properties of NbSe$_2$ in nanowires, as confirmed by low-temperature transport measurements that show a critical temperature of $T_c \approx 6.5$ K, comparable to the reported values for unpatterned sheets, and it maintains a contact resistance of $\sim 50 \, \Omega$ at $T = 4$ K. Meandered NbSe$_2$ nanowires exhibit a responsivity of up to $4.9 \times 10^4$ V/W over a spectral range of 650-1550 nm in a closed-cycle cryostat at 4 K, outperforming planar and short-wire devices. The devices achieve a $1/e$ recovery time of $\tau = (135 \pm 36)$ ns, system timing jitter of $j_\text{sys} = (1103 \pm 7)$ ps, and detection efficiency of $\sim 0.01\%$ at $0.95I_c$, with a linear increase in detection probability confirming the single-photon operation. Furthermore, measurements under attenuated pulsed laser (1 MHz) indicate a success rate of up to $33\%$ in detecting individual optical pulses, establishing the platform as a promising candidate for developing efficient single-photon detectors.

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Pietro Metuh, Athanasios Paralikis, Paweł Wyborski, Sherwan Jamo, Alessandro Palermo, Lucio Zugliani, Matteo Barbone, Kai Müller, Niels Gregersen, Saulius Vaitiekėnas, Jonathan Finley, Battulga Munkhbat. 2025-03-28. Toward single-photon detection with superconducting niobium diselenide nanowires. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.5c01195

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