Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors

Xiaolong Hu, Yuhao Cheng, Chao Gu +2 more

Eric A. Dauler, Bryan S. Robinson, Andrew J. Kerman +6 more

A multi-element superconducting nanowire single photon detector (MESNSPD) is presented that consists of multiple independently-biased superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) elements that form a continuous active area. A two-element SNSPD has been fabricated and tested, showing no measurable crosstalk between the elements, sub-50-ps relative timing jitter, and four times the maximum counting rate of a single SNSPD with the same active area. The MESNSPD can have a larger active area and higher speed than a single-element SNSPD and the input optics can be designed so that the detector provides spatial, spectral or photon number resolution.

Sae Woo Nam, Varun Boehm Verma, Michael S. Allman +7 more

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 (SNSPD or SSPD). I will briefly describe use of these detectors in new applications, progress in detector developments, and describe areas of research and their potential impact.

Alexander Söderstrand

Kai Zou, Yun Meng, Nan Hu +6 more

We present our research progress in superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) and multi-photon detectors (SNMPDs), including fractal SNSPDs with reduced polarization sensitivity, two mechanisms of device timing jitter, and SNMPDs integrated with current reservoirs.