Ultrafast superconducting single-photon detector

Abstract

Abstract The state-of-the-art of the NbN nanowire superconducting single-photon detector technology (SSPD) is presented. The SSPDs exhibit excellent performance at 2 K temperature: 30% quantum efficiency from visible to infrared, negligible dark count rate, single-photon sensitivity up to 5.6 µm. The recent achievements in the development of GHz counting rate devices with photon-number resolving capability is presented. Keywords: superconducting single-photon detectorsthin superconducting NbN filmsinfrared detectors Acknowledgement This work was supported by EU FP6 STREP 'SINPHONIA' (contract number NMP4-CT-2005-16433), Russian Agency on Science and Innovation contract 02.740.11.0228 and Russian Foundation for Basic Research Grant 09-02-12364.