Photonic Integrated Circuit Assisted Single-Photon Detectors (PICA-SPDs)

Within this program, Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) are developing Photonic Integrated Circuit Assisted-Single Photon Detectors (PICA-SPDs) to increase the bandwidth and timing resolution of single-photon detectors (SPDs). Realizing low size, weight, and power (SWaP) SPDs with high saturation-rates and high timing-resolutions are critical for deploying of quantum technology in space. While the best superconducting nanowire SPDs (SNSPDs) can achieve saturation rates up to 100 MHz with timing resolutions of several 10s of ps, these also require cryogenic environments, making their deployment in space a challenge. On the other hand, single photon avalanche photodiodes (SPADs) are low SWaP and can operate at room temperature with good efficiencies (75%); however, the timing resolution is often 50 ps (or more) and the saturation rate is typically limited to 10s of MHz. To overcome the challenge of increasing both the timing resolution and saturation rate of SPAD arrays, our unique active-approach leverages high-speed, low-loss PIC modulators. Here, single-photon optical signals enter the PIC and are routed to a series of Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) switches. These fast, traveling-wave switches are driven by periodic signals having progressively higher frequencies to create a switch yard. As the photon stream enters each of the MZI switches, the different time-positions are routed to different outputs of each MZI, which isolates individual time-positions to enable readout using an array of SPDs. This approach enables an array of SPADs to operate together to achieve timing resolutions even surpassing SNSPDs with greatly enhanced saturation count rates to enable space-based quantum networking applications. Physical Sciences Inc. and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are developing Photonic Integrated Circuit Assisted-Single Photon Detectors (PICA-SPDs) to increase the bandwidth and timing resolution of single-photon detectors (SPDs). Realizing low size, weight, and power (SWaP) SPDs with high saturation-rates and timing-resolutions are critical for deploying of quantum technology in space. To overcome these challenges our unique active-approach leverages high-speed, low-loss photonic-integrated circuit (PIC) modulators. Here, single-photon optical signals enter the PIC and are routed to a series of switches. These fast, traveling-wave switches are driven by periodic signals having progressively higher frequencies to create a switch yard, effectively routing incoming photons to different physical channels based on their arrival time. By registering these single-photons on a SPD array, our PICA-SPD approach will enable effective SPDs with high-timing resolutions and extended saturation rates for space-based quantum networking applications. The Phase II technical objectives are to further develop our PICA-SPDs we demonstrated in Phase I. We will continue to evaluate our Phase I chips as well as design and fabricate 1‑to-N switchyard photonic chips capable of >40 GHz operation for progressively larger values of N. We will characterize these devices using a short pulsed laser to calibrate the chips and to evaluate the saturation and timing performance. We will evaluate their performance with attenuated lasers and photon pair sources at the single-photon level and then compare the performance to individual detectors. We also will developed packaged PICA-SPD chips. Lastly, we will show the utility of our devices by demonstrating a quantum synchronization protocol that leverage our PICA-SPD approach. This effort will result in fully-packaged PICA-SPD devices for further evaluation by third-party users.

The development of quantum communications and networks are a key technology to enable secure communication, sensor arrays, and quantum computer networks. Our proposed technology will allow NASA to increase the bandwidth of both free-space and fiber quantum links. High saturation rate, low-jitter single-photon detectors are a general-purpose tool for a range of applications, from quantum networks and communication links, to imaging and healthcare applications.

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