  Single-photon detector (SPD), an essential building block of the quantum
communication system, plays a fundamental role in developing next-generation
quantum technologies. In this work, we propose an efficient modeling workflow
of nanowire SPDs utilizing avalanche breakdown at reverse-biased conditions.
The proposed workflow is explored to maximize computational efficiency and
balance time-consuming drift-diffusion simulation with fast script-based
post-processing. Without excessive computational effort, we could predict a
suite of key device performance metrics, including breakdown voltage,
dark/light avalanche built-up time, photon detection efficiency, dark count
rate, and the deterministic part of timing jitter due to device structures.
Implementing the proposed workflow onto a single InP nanowire and comparing it
to the extensively studied planar devices and superconducting nanowire SPDs, we
showed the great potential of nanowire avalanche SPD to outperform their planar
counterparts and obtain as superior performance as superconducting nanowires,
i.e., achieve a high photon detection efficiency of 70% with a dark count rate
less than 20 Hz at non-cryogenic temperature. The proposed workflow is not
limited to single-nanowire or nanowire-based device modeling and can be readily
extended to more complicated two-/three dimensional structures.
