Miniaturizing superconducting nanowire single-photon detection systems

Ruoyan Ma, Zhimin Guo, Dai Chen +11 more

Conventional superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) have been typically limited in their applications due to their size, weight, and power consumption, which confine their use to laboratory settings. However, with the rapid development of remote imaging, sensing technologies, and long-range quantum communication with fewer topographical constraints, the demand for high-efficiency single-photon detectors integrated with avionic platforms is rapidly growing. We herein designed and manufactured the first drone-based SNSPD system with a system detection efficiency (SDE) as high as 91.8%. This drone-based system incorporates high-performance NbTiN SNSPDs, a self-developed miniature liquid helium dewar, and custom-built integrated electrical setups, making it capable of being launched in complex topographical conditions. Such a drone-based SNSPD system may open the use of SNSPDs for applications that demand high SDE in complex environments.

Nathan R. Gemmell, Matthew Hills, Tom W. Bradshaw +9 more

We report on a miniaturized platform for superconducting infrared photon counting detectors. We have implemented a fibre-coupled superconducting nanowire single photon detector in a Stirling/Joule–Thomson platform with a base temperature of 4.2 K. We have verified a cooling power of 4 mW at 4.7 K. We report 20% system detection efficiency at 1310 nm wavelength at a dark count rate of 1 kHz. We have carried out compelling application demonstrations in single photon depth metrology and singlet oxygen luminescence detection.

Berggren, Anant, Baek +11 more

Guanglong He, Li Xue, Cheng Wu +14 more

Facing the demand for applications such as wide-area terrain mapping and space-based atmospheric measurements, there is an urgent need to develop miniaturized single-photon detection systems with low power consumption that can be adapted to airborne platforms. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) have been applied to quantum information, bioimaging, deep space communication and long-range lidar with the advantages of high quantum efficiency, low dark count rate and fast detection rate. However, traditional SNSPD usually operates at 2.1 K or even lower, and the required cryogenic systems are large in size and weight, which are not easy to apply to airborne platforms. Up to now, there has been no report on SNSPD applied to airborne platforms. How to apply SNSPD to airborne platforms is an urgent problem to be solved. In this work, we design and make an SNSPD with an operating temperature of 4.2 K. The superconducting detector chip is a four-channel photon-number-resolving device with a photosensitive area of 60 μm × 60 μm, which is coupled to a 200-μm-diameter fiber by a beam compression system with a quantum efficiency of 50% at 1064 nm and a temperature of 4.2 K. Finally, the time characteristics of a single channel are tested in response to different photon numbers. The timing jitter of four-photon response is smallest, and the half-height width is 110 ps. This work not only supports airborne applications, but also has positive implications for promoting the development of general-purpose miniaturized SNSPD systems and their applications.

Faraz Najafi, Francesco Marsili, Varun Boehm Verma +4 more