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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Superconducting Single Photon Detector Science and Engineering

Sae Woo Nam

Published Jan 1, 2017• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Single-photon detectors are an essential tool for a wide range of applications. Ideally, a single photon detector generates a measurable signal only when a single photon is absorbed. Since the first reported detection of a single photon using a superconducting nanowire in 2001, rapid progress has been made in the development and application of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors with ideal properties. I will briefly describe recent progress in detector development at NIST.

DOI
10.1364/cleo_qels.2017.ff1e.3

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Single-photon detectors are an essential tool for a wide range of applications. Ideally, a single photon detector generates a measurable signal only when a single photon is absorbed. Since the first reported detection of a single photon using a superconducting nanowire in 2001, rapid progress has been made in the development and application of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors with ideal properties. I will briefly describe recent progress in detector development at NIST.
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Two decades after their demonstration, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) have become indispensable tools for quantum photonics as well as for many other photon-starved applications. This invention has not only led to a burgeoning academic field with a wide range of applications but also triggered industrial efforts. Current state-of-the-art SNSPDs combine near-unity detection efficiency over a wide spectral range, low dark counts, short dead times, and picosecond time resolution. The present perspective discusses important milestones and progress of SNSPDs research, emerging applications, and future challenges and gives an outlook on technological developments required to bring SNSPDs to the next level: a photon-counting, fast time-tagging imaging, and multi-pixel technology that is also compatible with quantum photonic integrated circuits.