Infrared single photon detection in group IV nanowires – SINPHONI

Innovation in photonics devices operating in the short-wave infrared (SWIR) will disrupt multiple sectors and technologies, such as imaging, sensing of gas and molecules, industrial monitoring, medical diagnostics, food inspection, and LiDAR. The SWIR offers numerous advantages to free-space imaging during day/night and adverse atmospheric conditions, while enabling high-resolution imaging using single photon detectors. Existing single photon detectors find multiple applications in astronomy, metrology, in-vivo imaging, biosensing, and photonic quantum key distribution (QKD), however with the drawbacks of high costs and limited scalability due to need for expensive substrates and cryogenic cooling. SINPHONI will overcome these limitations by developing scalable, low-cost group IV semiconductor SPAD detectors on Si operating at room temperature in the SWIR. The exceptional properties of GeSn semiconductors when shaped into a nanowire (NW) array will offer a novel material platform to engineer SPAD detectors with unmatched performance. The main objectives of SINPHONI are to:
(1) Fabricate a SPAD detector operating at room temperature in the SWIR using GeSn nanowire arrays.
(2) Demonstrate the detection of SWIR single photons at room temperature.
(3) Achieve fast SWIR imaging of 3D objects through scattering media.
The results achieved in SINPHONI will generate novel applications in free-space, high-definition SWIR imaging technologies that are monolithically-integrated on a Si chip and could open new avenues in scalable photonics QKD technologies.