2021/06/16 by Yilin Xu, Artem Kuzmin, Emanuel Knehr +6 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · #Advanced Optical Sensing Technologies #Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques #Nanowire Synthesis and Applications
paper · doi:10.1364/oe.427639
openalex publication_date 2021/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We present an approach to increase the effective light-receiving area of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPD) by free-form microlenses. These lenses are printed in situ on top of the sensitive detector areas using high-resolution multi-photon lithography. We demonstrate a detector based on niobium-nitride (NbN) nanowires with a 4.5 µm × 4.5 µm sensitive area, supplemented with a lens of 60-µm-diameter. For a plane-wave-like free-space illumination at a wavelength of 1550 nm, the lensed sensor has a 100-fold increased effective collection area, which leads to a strongly enhanced system detection efficiency without the need for long nanowires. Our approach can be readily applied to a wide range of sensor types. It effectively overcomes the inherent design conflict between high count rate, high timing accuracy, and high fabrication yield on the one hand and high collection efficiency through a large effective detection area on the other hand.