Abstract: A review of development and characterization of the nanostructures consisting of several meander sections, all connected in parallel was presented. Such geometry leads to a significant decrease of the kinetic inductance, without a decrease of the SSPD active area. A new type of SSPDs possess the QE of large-active- area devices, but, simultaneously, allows achieving short response times and the GHz-counting rate. This new generation of superconducting detectors has another significant advantage for quantum key distribution, they have a photon number resolving capability and can distinguish more photons.

Abstract: A study was made of the heating of electrons in normal resistive states of superconducting thin Nb films. The directly determined relaxation time of the resistance of a sample and the rise of the electron temperature were used to find the electron-phonon interaction time rep,, The dependence of rep, on the mean free path of electrons re,, a 1-'demonstrated, in agreement with the theoretical predictions, that the contribution of the inelastic scattering of electrons by impurities to the energy relaxation process decreased at low temperatures and the observed temperature dependence rep, a T 2 was due to a modification of the phonon spectrum in thin fllms.
1. Much new information on the electron-phonon interaction time?;,, in thin films of normal metals and superconductors has been published recently. This information has been obtained mainly as a result of two types of measurement. One includes experiments on weak electron localization investigated by the method of quantum interference corrections to the conductivity of disordered conductors, which can be used to find the relaxation time T, of the phase of the electron wave function. In the absence of the scattering of electrons by paramagnetic impurities the relaxation time T, is associated with the most effective process of energy relaxation: T;= TL+ rep;, where T,, is the electronelectron relaxation time. At low temperatures, when the dependence T; a T is exhibited by thin disordered films, the dominant channel is that of the electron-electron relaxation and there is a lower limit to the temperature range in which rep, can be investigated.

Abstract: Achievement of the ultimate sensitivity along with a high spectral resolution is one of the frequently addressed problems, as the complication of the applied and fundamental scientific tasks being explored is growing up gradually. In our work, we have investigated performance of a superconducting nanowire photon-counting detector operating in the coherent mode for detection of weak signals at the telecommunication wavelength. Quantum-noise limited sensitivity of the detector was ensured by the nature of the photon-counting detection and restricted by the quantum efficiency of the detector only. Spectral resolution given by the heterodyne technique and was defined by the linewidth and stability of the Local Oscillator (LO). Response bandwidth was found to coincide with the detector’s pulse width, which, in turn, could be controlled by the nanowire length. In addition, the system noise bandwidth was shown to be governed by the electronics/lab equipment, and the detector noise bandwidth is predicted to depend on its jitter. As have been demonstrated, a very small amount of the LO power (of the order of a few picowatts down to hundreds of femtowatts) was required for sufficient detection of the test signal, and eventual optimization could lead to further reduction of the LO power required, which would perfectly suit for the foreseen development of receiver matrices and the need for detection of ultra-low signals at a level of less-than-one-photon per second.