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Wiechers, C., Lydersen, L., Wittmann, C., Elser, D., Skaar, J., Marquardt, C., et al. (2011). After-gate attack on a quantum cryptosystem. New J. Phys., 13(1), 14.
Abstract: We present a method to control the detection events in quantum key distribution systems that use gated single-photon detectors. We employ bright pulses as faked states, timed to arrive at the avalanche photodiodes outside the activation time. The attack can remain unnoticed, since the faked states do not increase the error rate per se. This allows for an intercept-resend attack, where an eavesdropper transfers her detection events to the legitimate receiver without causing any errors. As a side effect, afterpulses, originating from accumulated charge carriers in the detectors, increase the error rate. We have experimentally tested detectors of the system id3110 (Clavis2) from ID Quantique. We identify the parameter regime in which the attack is feasible despite the side effect. Furthermore, we outline how simple modifications in the implementation can make the device immune to this attack.
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Miller, A. J., Lita, A. E., Calkins, B., Vayshenker, I., Gruber, S. M., & Nam, S. W. (2011). Compact cryogenic self-aligning fiber-to-detector coupling with losses below one percent. Opt. Express, 19(10), 9102–9110.
Abstract: We present a compact packaging technique for coupling light from a single-mode telecommunication fiber to cryogenic single-photon sensitive devices. Our single-photon detectors are superconducting transition-edge sensors (TESs) with a collection area only a factor of a few larger than the area of the fiber core which presents significant challenges to low-loss fiber-to-detector coupling. The coupling method presented here has low loss, cryogenic compatibility, easy and reproducible assembly and low component cost. The system efficiency of the packaged single-photon counting detectors is verified by the “triplet method†of power-source calibration along with the “multiple attenuator†method that produces a calibrated single-photon flux. These calibration techniques, when used in combination with through-wafer imaging and fiber back-reflection measurements, give us confidence that we have achieved coupling losses below 1 % for all devices packaged according to the self-alignment method presented in this paper.
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Huang, K. C. Y., Jun, Y. C., Seo, M. - K., & Brongersma, M. L. (2011). Power flow from a dipole emitter near an optical antenna. Opt. Express, 19(20), 19084–19092.
Abstract: Current methods to calculate the emission enhancement of a quantum emitter coupled to an optical antenna of arbitrary geometry rely on analyzing the total Poynting vector power flow out of the emitter or the dyadic Green functions from full-field numerical simulations. Unfortunately, these methods do not provide information regarding the nature of the dominant energy decay pathways. We present a new approach that allows for a rigorous separation, quantification, and visualization of the emitter output power flow captured by an antenna and the subsequent reradiation power flow to the far field. Such analysis reveals unprecedented details of the emitter/antenna coupling mechanisms and thus opens up new design strategies for strongly interacting emitter/antenna systems used in sensing, active plasmonics and metamaterials, and quantum optics.
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Hu, X., Dauler, E. A., Molnar, R. J., & Berggren, K. K. (2011). Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors integrated with optical nano-antennae. Opt. Express, 19(1), 17–31.
Abstract: Optical nano-antennae have been integrated with semiconductor lasers to intensify light at the nanoscale and photodiodes to enhance photocurrent. In quantum optics, plasmonic metal structures have been used to enhance nonclassical light emission from single quantum dots. Absorption and detection of single photons from free space could also be enhanced by nanometallic antennae, but this has not previously been demonstrated. Here, we use nano-optical transmission effects in a one-dimensional gold structure, combined with optical cavity resonance, to form optical nano-antennae, which are further used to couple single photons from free space into a 80-nm-wide superconducting nanowire. This antenna-assisted coupling enables a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector with 47% device efficiency at the wavelength of 1550 nm and 9-μm-by-9-μm active area while maintaining a reset time of only 5 ns. We demonstrate nanoscale antenna-like structures to achieve exceptional efficiency and speed in single-photon detection.
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Bulaevskii, L. N., Graf, M. J., Batista, C. D., & Kogan, V. G. (2011). Vortex-induced dissipation in narrow current-biased thin-film superconducting strips. Phys. Rev. B, 83(14), 9.
Abstract: A vortex crossing a thin-film superconducting strip from one edge to the other, perpendicular to the bias current, is the dominant mechanism of dissipation for films of thickness d on the order of the coherence length ξ and of width w much narrower than the Pearl length Λâ‰<ab>wâ‰<ab>ξ. At high bias currents I*<I<Ic the heat released by the crossing of a single vortex suffices to create a belt-like normal-state region across the strip, resulting in a detectable voltage pulse. Here Ic is the critical current at which the energy barrier vanishes for a single vortex crossing. The belt forms along the vortex path and causes a transition of the entire strip into the normal state. We estimate I* to be roughly Ic/3. Furthermore, we argue that such “hot†vortex crossings are the origin of dark counts in photon detectors, which operate in the regime of metastable superconductivity at currents between I* and Ic. We estimate the rate of vortex crossings and compare it with recent experimental data for dark counts. For currents below I*, that is, in the stable superconducting but resistive regime, we estimate the amplitude and duration of voltage pulses induced by a single vortex crossing.
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Beck, M., Klammer, M., Lang, S., Leiderer, P., Kabanov, V. V., Gol'tsman, G. N., et al. (2011). Energy-gap dynamics of superconducting NbN thin films studied by time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy. Phys. Rev. Lett., 107(17), 4.
Abstract: Using time-domain terahertz spectroscopy we performed direct studies of the photoinduced suppression and recovery of the superconducting gap in a conventional BCS superconductor NbN. Both processes are found to be strongly temperature and excitation density dependent. The analysis of the data with the established phenomenological Rothwarf-Taylor model enabled us to determine the bare quasiparticle recombination rate, the Cooper pair-breaking rate and the electron-phonon coupling constant, λ=1.1±0.1, which is in excellent agreement with theoretical estimates.
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Belitsky, V., Desmaris, V., Dochev, D., Meledin, D., & Pavolotsky, A. (2011). Towards Multi-Pixel Heterodyne Terahertz Receivers. In Proc. 22th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol..
Abstract: Terahertz multi-pixel heterodyne receivers introduce multiple challenges for their implementation, mostly due to the extremely small dimensions of all components and even smaller tolerances in terms of alignment, linear dimensions and waveguide component surface quality. In this manuscript, we present a concept of terahertz multi-pixel heterodyne receiver employing optical layout using polarization split between the LO and RF. The frontend isbased on a waveguide balanced HEB mixer for the frequency band 1.6 – 2.0 THz. The balanced HEB mixer followsthe layout of earlier demonstrated APEX T2 mixer. However for the mixer presented here, we implemented split-block layout offering inimized lengths of all waveguides and thus reducing the associated RF loss. The micromachining methods employed for producing the mixer housing and the HEB mixer chip are very suitable for producing multiple structures and hence are in-line with requirements of multi-pixel receiver technology. The demonstrated relatively simple mounting of the mixer chip with self-aligning should greatly facilitate the integration of such multi-channel receiver. Index Terms—Instrumentation, Multi-pixel, Terahertz, Waveguide Balanced Mixer.
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Ryabchun, S., Smirnov, A., Pentin, I., Vakhtomin, Y., Smirnov, K., Kaurova, N., et al. (2011). Superconducting single photon detector integrated with optical cavity. In Proc. MLPLIT (pp. 143–145). Modern laser physics and laser-information technologies for science and manufacture.
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Maslennikova, A., Larionov, P., Ryabchun, S., Smirnov, A., Pentin, I., Vakhtomin, Y., et al. (2011). Noise equivalent power and dynamic range of NBN hot-electron bolometers. In Proc. MLPLIT (pp. 146–148). Modern laser physics and laser-information technologies for science and manufacture.
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Korneev, A., Korneeva, Y., Florya, I., Elezov, M., Manova, N., Tarkhov, M., et al. (2011). Recent advances in superconducting NbN single-photon detector development. In Proc. SPIE (Vol. 8072, 807202 (1 to 10)).
Abstract: Superconducting single-photon detector (SSPD) is a planar nanostructure patterned from 4-nm-thick NbN film deposited on sapphire substrate. The sensitive element of the SSPD is 100-nm-wide NbN strip. The device is operated at liquid helium temperature. Absorption of a photon leads to a local suppression of superconductivity producing subnanosecond-long voltage pulse. In infrared (at 1550 nm and longer wavelengths) SSPD outperforms avalanche photodiodes in terms of detection efficiency (DE), dark counts rate, maximum counting rate and timing jitter. Efficient single-mode fibre coupling of the SSPD enabled its usage in many applications ranging from single-photon sources research to quantum cryptography. Recently we managed to improve the SSPD performance and measured 25% detection efficiency at 1550 nm wavelength and dark counts rate of 10 s-1. We also improved photon-number resolving SSPD (PNR-SSPD) which realizes a spatial multiplexing of incident photons enabling resolving of up to 4 simultaneously absorbed photons. Another improvement is the increase of the photon absorption using a λ/4 microcavity integrated with the SSPD. And finally in our strive to increase the DE at longer wavelengths we fabricated SSPD with the strip almost twice narrower compared to the standard 100 nm and demonstrated that in middle infrared (about 3 μm wavelength) these devices have DE several times higher compared to the traditional SSPDs.
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