1303.4546 (R. Lusche et al.)

Effect of the wire width on the intrinsic detection efficiency of
superconducting-nanowire single-photon detectors    [PDF]

R. Lusche, A. Semenov, H. -W. Huebers, K. Ilin, M. Siegel, Y. Korneeva, A. Trifonov, A. Korneev, G. Goltsman, D. Vodolazov

Thorough spectral study of the intrinsic single-photon detection efficiency in superconducting TaN and NbN nanowires with different widths shows that the experimental cut-off in the efficiency at near-infrared wavelengths is most likely caused by the local deficiency of Cooper pairs available for current transport. For both materials the reciprocal cut-off wavelength scales with the wire width whereas the scaling factor quantitatively agrees with the hot-spot detection models. Comparison of the experimental data with vortex-assisted detection scenarios shows that these models predict a stronger dependence of the cut-off wavelength on the wire width.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.4546