Resolving Photon Numbers Using a Superconducting Nanowire with Impedance-Matching Taper
Name
1911.09485.pdf
Description
Submitted version
Size
7.63 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
1c7d9d092e1fdd4aa38e4aa2c1a4d8c1
Author(s)
Zhu, Di
Colangelo, Marco
Chen, Changchen
Korzh, Boris A
Wong, Franco NC
Shaw, Matthew D
Berggren, Karl K
Date Issued
2020
Journal
Nano Letters
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
© 2020 American Chemical Society. Time- and number-resolved photon detection is crucial for quantum information processing. Existing photon-number-resolving (PNR) detectors usually suffer from limited timing and dark-count performance or require complex fabrication and operation. Here, we demonstrate a PNR detector at telecommunication wavelengths based on a single superconducting nanowire with an integrated impedance-matching taper. The taper provides a kω load impedance to the nanowire, making the detector's output amplitude sensitive to the number of photon-induced hotspots. The prototyping device was able to resolve up to four absorbed photons with 16.1 ps timing jitter and <2 c.p.s. device dark count rate. Its exceptional distinction between single- and two-photon responses is ideal for high-fidelity coincidence counting and allowed us to directly observe bunching of photon pairs from a single output port of a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer. This detector architecture may provide a practical solution to applications that require high timing resolution and few-photon discrimination.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1021/ACS.NANOLETT.0C00985
