[pdf] [abstract] Superconducting nanowire avalanche single-photon detectors (SNAPs) with n parallel nanowires are advantageous over single-nanowire detectors because their output signal amplitude scales linearly with n. However, the SNAP architecture has not been viably demonstrated for n > 4. To increase n for larger signal amplification, we designed a multi-stage, successive-avalanche architecture which used nanowires, connected via choke inductors in a binary-tree layout. We demonstrated an avalanche detector with n = 8 parallel nanowires and achieved eight-fold signal amplification, with a timing jitter of 54 ps.

The paper by Qingyuan Zhao, Adam N. McCaughan, Andrew E. Dane, Faraz Najafi, Francesco Bellei, Domenico De Fazio, Kristen A. Sunter, Yachin Ivry, and Karl K. Berggren has been accepted to Optics Express.