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arXiv:1111.4178 · Optics Express

Analysis of a distributed fiber-optic temperature sensor using single-photon detectors

Shellee D. Dyer, Michael G. Tanner, Burm Baek, Robert H. Hadfield, Sae Woo Nam

Published Jan 30, 2012• 53 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We demonstrate a high-accuracy distributed fiber-optic temperature sensor using superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors and single-photon counting techniques. Our demonstration uses inexpensive single-mode fiber at standard telecommunications wavelengths as the sensing fiber, which enables extremely low-loss experiments and compatibility with existing fiber networks. We show that the uncertainty of the temperature measurement decreases with longer integration periods, but is ultimately limited by the calibration uncertainty. Temperature uncertainty on the order of 3 K is possible with spatial resolution of the order of 1 cm and integration period as small as 60 seconds. Also, we show that the measurement is subject to systematic uncertainties, such as polarization fading, which can be reduced with a polarization diversity receiver.

DOI
10.1364/oe.20.003456

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•Jan 1, 2018•0 citations
We demonstrate a high-accuracy distributed fiber-optic temperature sensor using superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors and single-photon counting techniques. Our demonstration uses inexpensive single-mode fiber at standard telecommunications wavelengths as the sensing fiber, which enables extremely low-loss experiments and compatibility with existing fiber networks. We show that the uncertainty of the temperature measurement decreases with longer integration periods, but is ultimately limited by the calibration uncertainty. Temperature uncertainty on the order of 3 K is possible with spatial resolution of the order of 1 cm and integration period as small as 60 seconds. Also, we show that the measurement is subject to systematic uncertainties, such as polarization fading, which can be reduced with a polarization diversity receiver.
We demonstrate a distributed fiber Raman sensor for absolute temperature measurement with spatial resolution on the order of 1 cm at 1550 nm wavelength in a single-mode fiber using superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. Rapid measurements are shown, with less than 60 s integration period, allowing the demonstration of temperature evolution in an optical fiber recorded at over 100 resolvable, 1.2 cm spaced positions along the fiber simultaneously. This distributed sensor has potential application as a primary reference standard, in which high-accuracy, high-spatial-resolution temperature measurements can be obtained without the need for a separate temperature calibration standard.
We conduct 3D mapping of cryogenic temperatures via a Raman-based distributed temperature sensor, employing standard telecom single-mode fibers and polarization-independent superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs). By coiling a test fiber around various stages of a liquid helium cooled cryostat, our device demonstrates a lower temperature sensing limit of (48 ± 2) K, below the nitrogen boiling point. This achievement is made possible by the low dark count rates of SNSPDs, as validated by theoretical simulations. Furthermore, we utilize our device to map cryogenic temperatures on the 350 cm 2 surface of a specially designed hollow cylindrical aluminum sample, accommodating approximately 2 m of standard single-mode optical fiber. During nitrogen cooling, we monitor the temporal evolution of the spatially dependent temperature gradient on the metallic sample with a temporal sampling down to one minute. Fiber-based distributed temperature sensing with centimetric spatial resolution can be effectively applied for 3D mapping at cryogenic temperatures of superconducting, quantum computing and aerospace instrumentation.
We present a Raman-based Distributed Temperature Sensor (RDTS) with centimetre-scale resolution for thermographic analysis of electronic circuits. Temperature is measured along a single-mode fiber routed across a custom printed circuit board (PCB) with 1 cm2^22 heating elements, using optical time-domain reflectometry of Raman signals detected by superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs). This approach enables two-dimensional thermal mapping of the PCB under heating configurations with multiple hotspots. A spatial resolution of 3 cm and a temperature accuracy of 2 °C are achieved with an integration time of 5 minutes. Thermography can be performed down to 77 K, revealing that the PCB thermal resistance decreases by nearly an order of magnitude compared to room temperature, due to enhanced convective cooling in liquid nitrogen. These results establish centimetre-scale RDTS as a robust technique for real-time, spatially resolved thermography of electronic circuits, particularly in regimes where infrared imaging is ineffective, such as at low temperatures or within volumetric electronic architectures.
In order to investigate the characteristics of the package and fiber coupling of a Superconducting Nanowire Single-photon Detector(SNSPD),the SNSPD was successfully built up in our laboratory.Experiments show that the quantum efficiencies of the detector under different light wavelengths are 6%@1310nm and 3%@1550nm when the dark count rate is 100 Hz.Then,as the distance(gap) between SNSPD and optical fiber would be changed due to the thermal stress during cooling,and would cause a misalignment,two kinds of fiber coupling methods to modulate the gap at room temperature were proposed.Finally,by altering the wavelength of the input light,the exact values of the gap at different temperatures were measured and then the influence of temperature on the gap were figured out by an experiment.The experimental results indicate that decreases of the gap for the two packages are 4.1 μm and 17 μm when the temperature dereases 270 K.Based on the analysis of package material and structure,the gaps at both room and low temperature were calculated theoretically.The result fits well with that of the experiments and it may offer some references to the design of new package and fiber coupling in the future.
Abstract Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) with both high system detection efficiency (SDE) and low dark count rate (DCR) play significant roles in quantum information processes and various applications. The background dark counts of SNSPDs originate from the room temperature blackbody radiation coupled to the device via a fiber. Therefore, a bandpass filter (BPF) operated at low temperature with minimal insert loss is necessary to suppress the background DCR. Herein, a low-loss BPF integrated on a single-mode fiber end-face was designed, fabricated and verified for the low temperature implement. The fiber end-face BPF was featured with a typical passband width about 40 nm in the 1550 nm telecom band and a peak transmittance of over 0.98. SNSPD with high SDE fabricated on a distributed Bragg reflector was coupled to the BPF. The device with such a BPF showed an SDE of 80% at a DCR of 0.5 Hz, measured at 2.1 K. Compared the same device without a BPF, the DCR was reduced by over 13 dB with an SDE decrease of <3%.
Superconducting single-photon detectors have been shown to have extremely high detection efficiency over a large wavelength range, typically exceeding 90 % [1, 2]. Their use in quantum and classical optics is becoming more and more widespread in part due to improvements to and ease of use of the cryogenic packaging. In this talk, we will review two superconducting detector technologies, the superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) and the optical transition-edge sensor (TES) [3], that are being developed at NIST. We will also describe their applications in quantum and classical optics and present our recent effort to use these detectors as calibration standards, as well as our effort to establish a single-photon detector calibration service. Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors The SNSPD is based on a meandering, narrow, thin superconducting nanowire, current-biased close to its critical current. Our SNSPDs operate at temperatures around 1K. When a photon is absorbed in the detection region, the energy deposited drives the wire normal and a voltage pulse can be observed. Due to the speed of the detection process, the SNSPD offers high timing resolution along with detection of the photon flux at the shot-noise limit. The combination of both these features yields a detector that can measure the photon’s arrival time from a faint object or source. SNSPDs also offer single-photon detection capability beyond the wavelength detection range of silicon and InGaAs, out to at least 5000 nm [4]. SNSPDs were also recently implemented in an 8×8-pixel array enabling low-resolution, real-time imaging [5]. For our calibration service effort, we built an SNSPD system that can be used as a transfer standard between labs for single-photon detector calibrations. Transition Edge Sensors In contrast to the SNSPD, the TES is a photon-number resolving detector that has almost unity detection efficiency. The TES consists of a superconducting thin film, voltage-biased so that its resistance is in the transition between the superconducting regime and the normal conducting regime. The steep slope of the resistive transition allows for small temperature changes to be measured. The TES is designed such that the absorption of a single photon increases the temperature of the superconducting film enough to discern the resulting signal from the TES system noise. Therefore, the TES needs to be electrically and thermally quiet and is generally operated at temperatures around 100 mK. Due to its energy resolving capability, the TES can be also used as a spectrally resolving single-photon detector with limited resolution [6]. The TES can also be operated as a cryogenic radiometer in combination with an electrical substitution method, and can, in principle, yield absolute calibration of optical powers on the order of a few tens of femtowatts [7]. References 1 A. E. Lita, A. J. Miller, and S. W. Nam, Opt. Express 16, 3032 (2008). 2 F. Marsili, et al., Nat Photon 7, 210 (2013). 3 R. Hadfield and G. Johansson, Superconducting Devices in Quantum Optics (Springer, 2016). 4 F. Marsili, et al., in CLEO: 2013 (OSA, San Jose, California, 2013), p. CTu1H.1. 5 M. S. Allman, et al., Applied Physics Letters 106, 192601 (2015). 6 M. Fortsch, et al., Journal of Optics 17, 065501 (2015). 7 N. A. Tomlin, J. H. Lehman, and S. Nam, Optics Letters 37, 2346 (2012).