Detecting single infrared photons with 93% system efficiency

By F. Marsili, V. Verma, J. Stern, S. Harrington, A. Lita, T. Gerrits, I. Vayshenker, B. Baek, M. Shaw, R. Mirin and 1 more. Nature Photonics, 2012

1,220 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Single-photon detectors1 at near-infrared wavelengths with high system detection efficiency (>90%), low dark count rate (<1 c.p.s.), low timing jitter (<100 ps) and short reset time (<100 ns) would enable landmark experiments in a variety of fields2,3,4,5,6. Although some of the existing approaches to single-photon detection fulfil one or two of the above specifications1, to date, no detector has met all of the specifications simultaneously. Here, we report on a fibre-coupled single-photon detection system that uses superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors7 and closely approaches the ideal performance of single-photon detectors. Our detector system has a system detection efficiency (including optical coupling losses) greater than 90% in the wavelength range λ = 1,520–1,610 nm, with a device dark count rate (measured with the device shielded from any background radiation) of ∼1 c.p.s., timing jitter of ∼150 ps full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) and reset time of 40 ns. Researchers develop a fiber-coupled single-photon-detection system using amorphous tungsten silicide superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. The system detection efficiency is higher than 90% in the wavelength range between 1520 nm and 1610 nm. The device dark-count rate, timing jitter and reset time are 1 cps, 150 ps and 40 ns, respectively.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation, Spectroscopy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aae5a4c587c5c0ab9038b94a9d9e5ae3a33d7e2c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Instrumentation

In Spectroscopy

Citations in the corpus

Remote creation of hybrid entanglement between particle-like and wave-like optical qubits (2013, background): “vided by the new generation of superconducting devices working in the near infrared [39].”
Practical challenges in quantum key distribution (2016, neutral): “The latest developments on high ef ﬁ ciency detectors 52 – 54 are extremely promising; quantum ef ﬁ ciencies as high as 93% at telecom wavelengths have been reported for SNSPDs, 53 and devices based on this technology with short dead time, low dark count, low time jitter and high detection ef ﬁ cien”
Silicon Quantum Photonics (2015, background): “WSi [82]–[84], MoSi [85], [86], and MoGe [87].”
Direct generation of three-photon polarization entanglement (2014, methodology): “Here, we employ newly developed superconducting nanowire singlephoton detectors (SNSPDs) with high system detection efficiency of over 90% at 1550 nm [24], promising a hundred-fold increase in detected triplet rates.”
Large-scale quantum photonic circuits in silicon (2016, background): “Recent experimental work on tungsten silicide SNSPDs has shown 90% detection efficiencies [103].”
Cavity-based quantum networks with single atoms and optical photons (2014, methodology): “Gaining another order of magnitude would require an improved optics setup and SPCMs with an efficiency approaching unity, as invented recently (Marsili et al., 2013).”
Photon-sparse microscopy: Visible light imaging using infrared illumination (2015, background): “However, latest generation of SNSPDs have near unity efficiency, coupled with low dark counts and deadtimes ~10 ns [9] and as such can acquire images more rapidly and with a potentially much higher image contrast.”