Abstract: The work presents the result of development of the NbN superconducting hot-electron-bolometer (HEB) mixer. The sensitive element of the mixer is directly coupled to mid-IR radiation, and doesn’t have planar metallic antenna. Investigations of noise characteristics of NbN HEB mixer were performed at the frequency 28.4 THz (λ = 10.6 µm) by using gas-discharge CW CO2-laser without consideration of optical and electrical losses in the heterodyne receiver. The noise temperature of NbN HEB mixer with the size of the sensitive element 10 µm × 10 µm was 2320 K (~ 1.5hν/kB) at the heterodyne frequency of 28.4 THz. The noise temperature was determined by measuring the Y-factor taking into account the term which describes fluctuations of zero-point oscillations in accordance with the fluctuation-dissipation theorem of Calle-Welton. Isothermal method was used to estimate the absorbed heterodyne radiation power which was 9 µW at the optimal operating point for the minimum noise temperature of NbN HEB mixer.

Abstract: Closing of the so-called terahertz gap results in an increased demand for optoelectronic devices operating in the frequency range from 0.1 to 10 THz. Active plasmonic in field effect devices based on high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) opens up opportunities for creation of on-chip spectrum [1] and polarization [2] analysers. Here we show that single layer graphene (SLG) grown using CVD method can be used for an all-electric helicity sensitive polarization broad analyser of THz radiation. Allourresults show plasmonic nature of response. Devices are made in a configuration ofa field-effect transistor (FET) with a graphene channel that has a length of 2 mkm and a width of 5.5 mkm. Response of opposite polarity to clockwise and anticlockwise polarized radiation is due to special antenna design (see Fig.1c) as follow works [2,3]. Our approaches can be extrapolated to other 2D materials and used as a tool to characterize plasmonic excitations in them. [1]Bandurin, D. A., etal.,Nature Communications, 9(1),(2018),1-8.[2]Drexler, C.,etal.,Journal of Applied Physics, 111(12),(2012),124504.[3]Gorbenko, I. V.,et al.,physica status solidi (RRL)–Rapid Research Letters, 13(3),(2019),1800464.

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.