Numerical Design of Plasmonic Structure Integrated Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector Constructed with...

Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) were numerically designed by integrating periodic plasmonic structures onto hBN-protected superconducting BSCCO patterns to enhance absorptance. The numerical investigation of optimized nanocavity array (NCAI) and nanocavity trench array (NCTAI) SNSPDs has revealed that more than one-order-of-magnitude higher absorptance can be achieved at perpendicular incidence, compared to the corresponding meandered BSCCO pattern in a simple resonant optical cavity. The presented SNSPD designs are considerably improved via first and third quarter wavelength nanocavity resonances, as evidenced by the near-field maps and validated by the standard retrieval method. Although the NCAI-SNSPD exhibits a slightly larger absorptance, the NCTAI-SNSPD remains potentially competitive due to its smaller filling factor, which may be beneficial for reduced charge-crowding effect.