  The generation, manipulation and detection of quantum bits (qubits) encoded
on single photons is at the heart of quantum communication and optical quantum
information processing. The combination of single-photon sources, passive
optical circuits and single-photon detectors enables quantum repeaters and
qubit amplifiers, and also forms the basis of all-optical quantum gates and of
linear-optics quantum computing. However, the monolithic integration of
sources, waveguides and detectors on the same chip, as needed for scaling to
meaningful number of qubits, is very challenging, and previous work on quantum
photonic circuits has used external sources and detectors. Here we propose an
approach to a fully-integrated quantum photonic circuit on a semiconductor
chip, and demonstrate a key component of such circuit, a waveguide
single-photon detector. Our detectors, based on superconducting nanowires on
GaAs ridge waveguides, provide high efficiency (20%) at telecom wavelengths,
high timing accuracy (60 ps), response time in the ns range, and are fully
compatible with the integration of single-photon sources, passive networks and
modulators.
