Scaling of single-photon sensor arrays through monolithic semiconductor-superconductor integration

Superconducting-nanowire single-photon detectors have excellent properties that make them strong candidates to serve NASA's scientific images, including high quantum efficiency, high speed, and low dark counts, with sensitivity from the UV to the mid-IR. Yet their utility in major science missions is limited by challenges related to scaling to large-format sensor arrays. In the proposed work, we will enable scaling to large arrays by augmenting the capabilities of superconducting sensors through monolithic integration with semiconductor electronics. The tremendous success of CMOS cameras derives in part from the performance and convenience of their readout architecture. With this work we will combine the exquisite sensitivity of superconducting sensors with the scalability of CMOS readout concepts, enabling superconducting sensors to make use of the exact same array readout architecture that has been so successful for semiconducting sensors. The technological advances will be applicable to superconducting nanowire detectors serving various spectral ranges, and even potentially other types of superconducting sensors, but we will focus our attention on the mid-IR spectral range as that is where nanowire detectors have the greatest advantages to offer NASA’s scientific missions and also where nanowire array readout is the most challenging. With this two-year effort we will demonstrate full superconductor-semiconductor integration and experimentally verify the utility at the scale of a 64-pixel array, and in so doing we will establish a roadmap to increase the scaling to a megapixel array in a subsequent effort. This monolithic superconductor-semiconductor integration will be carried out using the fabrication facilities at NIST, and all testing will be carried out in NIST’s state-of-the-art single-photon metrology laboratories. We have previously demonstrated the key elements of the requisite circuits, including superconducting-nanowire single-photon detectors sensitive in the mid-IR, and the monolithic integration of superconducting-nanowire detectors with Josephson junctions. We have also demonstrated the superconducting amplifiers that serve as the transduction interface for superconductor-semiconductor co-processing, and we have demonstrated that these amplifiers can produce sufficient voltage to drive semiconductor devices. We have thus established the first three links in the signal processing chain The final link, and a major component of this program, will be to integrate these elements with silicon transistors to put in place the last necessary element of the readout concept. Inclusion of transistors in the readout architecture allows the superconducting sensors to plug directly into the established infrastructure of CMOS sensor array readout. The realization of such large-format, high-performance, single-photon detector arrays will have major impacts on NASA’s scientific endeavors. The 2021 decadal report argues that studying the first light of star formation and the distant past of galactic evolution are high priorities. Such research can only be conducted by looking deep into the infrared to observe distant structures at high redshift. The realization of megapixel arrays of mid-IR single-photon detectors with high-speed and convenient readout would bring to fruition a technology with performance exceeding the semiconductor-based mid-IR sensors currently employed on the James Webb Space Telescope, offering a path to a future imaging system that could see beyond even the extraordinary capabilities of JWST. The decadal report also points to the “ultimate goal of imaging and spectroscopy of potentially habitable worlds”. The sensor arrays and readout concepts developed here will directly enable imaging and spectroscopy in the faint-light conditions required for exoplanet spectroscopy, opening grand new vistas in astrobiology.

The Astrophysics Research and Analysis program (APRA) supports suborbital and suborbital-class investigations, development of detectors and supporting technology, laboratory astrophysics, and limited ground-based observing. Basic research proposals in these areas are solicited for investigations that are relevant to NASA's programs in astronomy and astrophysics, including the entire range of photons, gravitational waves, and particle astrophysics. The emphasis of this solicitation is on technologies and investigations that advance NASA astrophysics missions and goals.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.