Abstract: We demonstrate that our ultrathin, nanometer-width NbN superconducting single-photon detectors are capable of above 1-GHz-frequency, real-time counting of near-infrared photons. The measured system jitter of the detector is below 15 ps.

Abstract: We describe a novel GaAs/AlGaAs double-quantumwell device for the infrared photon detection, called ChargeSensitive Infrared Phototransistor (CSIP). The principle of CSIP detector is the photo-excitation of an intersubband transition in a QW as an charge integrating gate and the signal ampli<ef><ac><81>cation by another QW as a channel with very high gain, which provides us with extremely high responsivity (104 – 106 A/W). It has been demonstrated that the CSIP designed for the mid-infrared wavelength (14.7 μm) has an excellent sensitivity; the noise equivalent power (NEP) of 7 × 10-19 W/ with the quantum effciency of ~ 2%. Advantages of the CSIP against the other highly sensitive detectors are, huge dynamic range of > 106, low output impedance of 103 – 104 Ohms, and relatively high operation temperature (> 2 K). We discuss possible applications of the CSIP to FIR photon detection covering 35 – 60 μm waveband, which is a gap uncovered with presently available photoconductors.