Development of transition-edge sensors with high detection efficiency and fast response time
Takeshi Jodoi, Tetsuya Tsuruta, Takahiro Kikuchi +4 more
This study developed transition-edge sensors (TESs), which can achieve high detection efficiency and fast response time through an optimized optical cavity design. Their suitability for optical quantum information processing was confirmed. Furthermore, we developed TESs with two different sensitive area sizes—8 × 7 ţm2, 12 × 11 ţm2—and systematically evaluated their performances. By employing a titanium (Ti)/gold (Au) bilayer with a relatively high transition temperature as the sensitive element, we achieved a fast total response time—defined as the sum of the rise and decay times—of ∼160 ns. Furthermore, the optical cavity structure—predicted by simulations to achieve a photon absorptance of 99.9% at 1550 nm—yielded measured system detection efficiencies of 94.7% ± 0.62% for the 8 × 7 ţm2 TES and 99.0% ± 0.60% for the 12 × 11 ţm2 TES. Photon response measurements indicate an energy resolution of 0.20 eV for the 8 × 7 ţm2 TES and 0.37 eV for the 12 × 11 ţm2 TES. These results establish that the proposed TESs are the fastest and most efficient devices reported to date. The proposed devices offer a high detection efficiency, high count rate, and accurate photon-number resolution. Therefore, they provide a breakthrough platform for scalable fault-tolerant quantum information processing and enable significant advances in experimental quantum optics.
APL Photonics•Jul 1, 2026•0 citations