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Semenov, A. D., Gol'tsman, G. N., & Sobolewski, R. (2002). Hot-electron effect in superconductors and its applications for radiation sensors. Supercond. Sci. Technol., 15(4), R1–R16.
Abstract: The paper reviews the main aspects of nonequilibrium hot-electron phenomena in superconductors and various theoretical models developed to describe the hot-electron effect. We discuss implementation of the hot-electron avalanche mechanism in superconducting radiation sensors and present the most successful practical devices, such as terahertz mixers and direct intensity detectors, for far-infrared radiation. Our presentation also includes the novel approach to hot-electron quantum detection implemented in superconducting x-ray to optical photon counters.
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Verevkin, A., Pearlman, A., Slysz, W., Zhang, J., Currie, M., Korneev, A., et al. (2004). Ultrafast superconducting single-photon detectors for near-infrared-wavelength quantum communications. J. Modern Opt., 51(9-10), 1447–1458.
Abstract: The paper reports progress on the design and development of niobium-nitride, superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPDs) for ultrafast counting of near-infrared photons for secure quantum communications. The SSPDs operate in the quantum detection mode, based on photon-induced hotspot formation and subsequent appearance of a transient resistive barrier across an ultrathin and submicron-width superconducting stripe. The devices are fabricated from 3.5 nm thick NbN films and kept at cryogenic (liquid helium) temperatures inside a cryostat. The detector experimental quantum efficiency in the photon-counting mode reaches above 20% in the visible radiation range and up to 10% at the 1.3–1.55 μn infrared range. The dark counts are below 0.01 per second. The measured real-time counting rate is above 2 GHz and is limited by readout electronics (the intrinsic response time is below 30 ps). The SSPD jitter is below 18 ps, and the best-measured value of the noise-equivalent power (NEP) is 2 × 10−18 W/Hz1/2. at 1.3 μm. In terms of photon-counting efficiency and speed, these NbN SSPDs significantly outperform semiconductor avalanche photodiodes and photomultipliers.
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Sprengers, J. P., Gaggero, A., Sahin, D., Jahanmirinejad, S., Frucci, G., Mattioli, F., et al. (2011). Waveguide superconducting single-photon detectors for integrated quantum photonic circuits. Appl. Phys. Lett., 99(18), 181110(1–3).
Abstract: The monolithic integration of single-photon sources, passive optical circuits, and single-photon detectors enables complex and scalable quantum photonic integrated circuits, for application in linear-optics quantum computing and quantum communications. Here, we demonstrate a key component of such a circuit, a waveguide single-photon detector. Our detectors, based on superconducting nanowires on GaAs ridge waveguides, provide high efficiency (~0%) at telecom wavelengths, high timing accuracy (~0 ps), and response time in the ns range and are fully compatible with the integration of single-photon sources, passive networks, and modulators.
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Lusche, R., Semenov, A., Huebers, H. - W., Ilin, K., Siegel, M., Korneeva, Y., et al. (2013). Effect of the wire geometry and an externally applied magnetic field on the detection efficiency of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. In INIS (Vol. 46, pp. 1–3).
Abstract: The interest in single-photon detectors in the near-infrared wavelength regime for applications, e.g. in quantum cryptography has immensely increased in the last years. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPD) already show quite reasonable detection efficiencies in the NIR which can even be further improved. Novel theoretical approaches including vortex-assisted photon counting state that the detection efficiency in the long wavelength region can be enhanced by the detector geometry and an applied magnetic field. We present spectral measurements in the wavelength range from 350-2500 nm of the detection efficiency of meander-type TaN and NbN SNSPD with varying nanowire line width from 80 to 250 nm. Due to the used experimental setup we can accurately normalize the measured spectra and are able to extract the intrinsic detection efficiency (IDE) of our detectors. The results clearly indicate an improvement of the IDE depending on the wire width according to the theoretic models. Furthermore we experimentally found that the smallest detectable photon-flux can be increased by applying a small magnetic field to the detectors.
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Sprengers, J. P., Gaggero, A., Sahin, D., Nejad, S. J., Mattioli, F., Leoni, R., et al. (2011). Waveguide single-photon detectors for integrated quantum photonic circuits. In arXiv (Vol. 1108.5107, pp. 1–11).
Abstract: The generation, manipulation and detection of quantum bits (qubits) encoded on single photons is at the heart of quantum communication and optical quantum information processing. The combination of single-photon sources, passive optical circuits and single-photon detectors enables quantum repeaters and qubit amplifiers, and also forms the basis of all-optical quantum gates and of linear-optics quantum computing. However, the monolithic integration of sources, waveguides and detectors on the same chip, as needed for scaling to meaningful number of qubits, is very challenging, and previous work on quantum photonic circuits has used external sources and detectors. Here we propose an approach to a fully-integrated quantum photonic circuit on a semiconductor chip, and demonstrate a key component of such circuit, a waveguide single-photon detector. Our detectors, based on superconducting nanowires on GaAs ridge waveguides, provide high efficiency (20%) at telecom wavelengths, high timing accuracy (60 ps), response time in the ns range, and are fully compatible with the integration of single-photon sources, passive networks and modulators.
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