Jitter analysis of a superconducting nanowire single photon detector

• Main Authors: Lixing You, Xiaoyan Yang, Yuhao He, Wenxing Zhang, Dengkuan Liu, Weijun Zhang, Lu Zhang, Ling Zhang, Xiaoyu Liu, Sijing Chen, Zhen Wang, Xiaoming Xie
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIP Publishing LLC 2013-07-01
• Series: AIP Advances
• Online Access: http://link.aip.org/link/doi/10.1063/1.4817581
• ISSN: 2158-3226

Jitter is one of the key parameters for a superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD). Using an optimized time-correlated single photon counting system for jitter measurement, we extensively studied the dependence of system jitter on the bias current and working temperature. The signal-to-noise ratio of the single-photon-response pulse was proven to be an important factor in system jitter. The final system jitter was reduced to 18 ps by using a high-critical-current SNSPD, which showed an intrinsic SNSPD jitter of 15 ps. A laser ranging experiment using a 15-ps SNSPD achieved a record depth resolution of 3 mm at a wavelength of 1550 nm.