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Korneeva, Y., Florya, I., Semenov, A., Korneev, A., & Goltsman, G. (2011). New generation of nanowire NbN superconducting single-photon detector for mid-infrared. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., 21(3), 323–326.
Abstract: We present a break-through approach to mid-infrared single-photon detection based on nanowire NbN superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPD). Although SSPD became a mature technology for telecom wavelengths (1.3-1.55 μm) its further expansion to mid-infrared wavelength was hampered by low sensitivity above 2 μm. We managed to overcome this limit by reducing the nanowire width to 50 nm, while retaining high superconducting properties and connecting the wires in parallel to produce a voltage response of sufficient magnitude. The new device exhibits 10 times better quantum efficiency at 3.5 μm wavelength than the “standard” SSPD.
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Marsili, F., Bitauld, D., Fiore, A., Gaggero, A., Leoni, R., Mattioli, F., et al. (2009). Superconducting parallel nanowire detector with photon number resolving functionality. J. Modern Opt., 56(2-3), 334–344.
Abstract: We present a new photon number resolving detector (PNR), the Parallel Nanowire Detector (PND), which uses spatial multiplexing on a subwavelength scale to provide a single electrical output proportional to the photon number. The basic structure of the PND is the parallel connection of several NbN superconducting nanowires (100 nm-wide, few nm-thick), folded in a meander pattern. Electrical and optical equivalents of the device were developed in order to gain insight on its working principle. PNDs were fabricated on 3-4 nm thick NbN films grown on sapphire (substrate temperature TS=900C) or MgO (TS=400C) substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering in an Ar/N2 gas mixture. The device performance was characterized in terms of speed and sensitivity. The photoresponse shows a full width at half maximum (FWHM) as low as 660ps. PNDs showed counting performance at 80 MHz repetition rate. Building the histograms of the photoresponse peak, no multiplication noise buildup is observable and a one photon quantum efficiency can be estimated to be QE=3% (at 700 nm wavelength and 4.2 K temperature). The PND significantly outperforms existing PNR detectors in terms of simplicity, sensitivity, speed, and multiplication noise.
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Takesue, H., Nam, S. W., Zhang, Q., Hadfield, R. H., Honjo, T., Tamaki, K., et al. (2007). Quantum key distribution over a 40-dB channel loss using superconducting single-photon detectors. Nat. Photon., 1, 343–348.
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Xu, Y., Zheng, X., Williams, C., Verevkin, A., Sobolewski, R., Chulkova, G., et al. (2001). Ultrafast superconducting hot-electron single-photon detector. In CLEO (345).
Abstract: Summary form only given. The current most-pressing need is to develop a practical, GHz-range counting single-photon detector, operational at either 1.3-/spl mu/m or 1.55-/spl mu/m radiation wavelength, for novel quantum communication and quantum cryptography systems. The presented solution of the problem is to use an ultrafast hot-electron photodetector, based on superconducting thin-film microstructures. This type of device is very promising, due to the macroscopic quantum nature of superconductors. Very fast response time and the small, (meV range) value of the superconducting energy gap characterize the superconductor, leading to the efficient avalanche process even for infrared photons.
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Dauler, E., Kerman, A., Robinson, B., Yang, J., Voronov, B., Goltsman, G., et al. (2009). Photon-number-resolution with sub-30-ps timing using multi-element superconducting nanowire single photon detectors. J. Modern Opt., 56(2), 364–373.
Abstract: A photon-number-resolving detector based on a four-element superconducting nanowire single photon detector is demonstrated to have sub-30-ps resolution in measuring the arrival time of individual photons. This detector can be used to characterize the photon statistics of non-pulsed light sources and to mitigate dead-time effects in high-speed photon counting applications. Furthermore, a 25% system detection efficiency at 1550 nm was demonstrated, making the detector useful for both low-flux source characterization and high-speed photon-counting and quantum communication applications. The design, fabrication and testing of this detector are described, and a comparison between the measured and theoretical performance is presented.
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