Characterization of a Photon-Number Resolving SNSPD Using Poissonian and Sub-Poissonian Light

Abstract

Photon-number resolving (PNR) single-photon detectors are of interest for a wide range of applications in the emerging field of photon based quantum technologies. Especially photonic integrated circuits will pave the way for a high complexity and ease of use of quantum photonics. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are of special interest since they combine a high detection efficiency and a high timing accuracy with a high count rate and they can be configured as PNR-SNSPDs. Here, we present a PNR-SNSPD with a four photon resolution suitable for waveguide integration operating at a temperature of 4 K. A high statistical accuracy for the photon number is achieved for a Poissonian light source at a photon flux below 5 photons/pulse with a detection efficiency of 22.7 ± 3.0 % at 900 nm and a pulse rate frequency of 76 MHz. We demonstrate the ability of such a detector to discriminate a sub-Poissonian from a Poissonian light source.

The Deep Space Quantum Link: Prospective Fundamental Physics Experiments using Long-Baseline Quantum Optics

“…The ground system further requires a large collection area coupled efficiently to low-jitter single-photon detectors. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors are a technology that has demonstrated system detection efficiencies of 98% [213], photon number resolution [214,215], dark count rates below 10 −4 cps [216], and timing jitter below 3 ps [217] (though not yet all in a single device).…”

“…• Ultra-high-speed and high-efficiency detectors for single photons (e.g., based on superconducting nanowires (SNSPD)) have achieved tremendous performance [213][214][215][216][217]. However, integrating these devices into a space-amenable system requires further advancement in small-scale cryogenics, and advancing multi-mode optical fiber interfaces.…”

Mid-infrared photon counting with superconducting nanowires

“…Although SNSPDs were initially incapable of distinguishing between single and multi-photon events much progress has been made in recent years. Various schemes exist including exploiting the rise time variation between different n-photon events [49] or connecting multiple nanowires in series [50,51].…”

Scheme for the generation of hybrid entanglement between time-bin and wavelike encodings

“…These solutions have dramatic consequences for the experiment maximum operation rate and required overhead, respectively. At the same time, we note that photon number resolving detectors, although often introduced in the literature on hybrid state [11], are hardly available off-the-shelf and, so far, most of the demonstrations involving some counting ability rely on complex spatial multiplexing strategies based on detector arrays [31,32]. For the input CV state, we set α = 2.…”