Characterization of photon arrival timing jitter in microwave kinetic inductance detector arrays

Abstract

We measure the photon arrival timing jitter of three superconducting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) within a large array of 20,440 pixels, spanning resonating frequencies from 4 to 8 GHz. We analyze arrival time distributions for photon number n = 1 and n = 2 events and find the distribution full-width at half-maximum ranging from 132 to 796 ns across the three detectors. In combination with nearly zero dark counts and multiplexed readout schemes, sub-microsecond jitter can be leveraged for high-time resolved astronomy, quantum, and bio-physics applications. The measured system jitter serves as an upper limit for MKIDs, with optimized performance likely reaching tens of nanoseconds. We discuss how to improve upon the detector and readout performance.