Niobium nitride (NbN) nanowires have a high repetition rate and efficiency, making them ideal for superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs). However, it is difficult to fabricate NbN arrays over large areas, which is critical for various applications. This paper describes a 4 × 4 NbN SNSPD array (16 pixels) and optical coupling with a 300-μm-diameter multimode fiber using beam compression technology. This is the first NbN SNSPD coupled with such large-diameter fibers. The designed pixels are positioned as closely as possible (pixel filling factor about 98.5%), almost without dead area between them. This results in a system efficiency of 46% and a quantum efficiency of 94.5% for photons (λ = 1064 nm) coupled from multimode fibers. An intrinsic time resolution of less than 69 ps can be obtained. The proposed high-performance single photon detector is suitable for satellite laser ranging. Furthermore, the proposed system is feasible for large SNSPD arrays with NbN, paving the way for the development of efficient photon cameras with NbN nanowires.

中文翻译：

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16 像素 NbN 纳米线单光子探测器与 300 微米光纤耦合

氮化铌 (NbN) 纳米线具有高重复率和效率，使其成为超导纳米线单光子探测器 (SNSPD) 的理想选择。然而，很难在大面积上制造 NbN 阵列，这对各种应用至关重要。本文描述了一个 4 × 4 NbN SNSPD 阵列（16 像素）和使用光束压缩技术的 300 微米直径多模光纤的光耦合。这是第一个与这种大直径光纤耦合的 NbN SNSPD。设计的像素尽可能靠近（像素填充因子约为 98.5%），它们之间几乎没有死区。这导致从多模光纤耦合的光子 (λ = 1064 nm) 的系统效率为 46%，量子效率为 94.5%。可以获得小于 69 ps 的固有时间分辨率。所提出的高性能单光子探测器适用于卫星激光测距。此外，所提出的系统对于具有 NbN 的大型 SNSPD 阵列是可行的，为开发具有 NbN 纳米线的高效光子相机铺平了道路。