Design of a polarization-insensitive superconducting nanowire single photon detector with high detection efficiency

Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) deliver superior performance over their competitors in the near-infrared regime. However, these detectors have an intrinsic polarization dependence on the incident wave because of their one-dimensional meander structure. In this paper, we propose an approach to eliminate the polarization sensitivity of SNSPDs by using near-field optics to increase the absorption of SNSPDs under transverse magnetic (TM) illumination. In addition, an optical cavity is added to our SNSPD to obtain nearly perfect absorption of the incident wave. Numerical simulations show that the maximum absorption of a designed SNSPD can reach 96% at 1550 nm, and indicate that the absorption difference between transverse electric (TE) and TM polarization is less than 0.5% across a wavelength window of 300 nm. Our work provides the first demonstration of the possibility of designing a polarization-insensitive and highly efficient SNSPD without performing device symmetry improvements.