Superconducting photon detectors

Abstract

The ability to detect individual light quanta – single photons – is prized across many fields of physics from astronomy to quantum optics. Superconducting photon detectors offer exceptional performance in terms of sensitivity, spectral range and timing resolution. In this review, we introduce the underlying physics of photon absorption in superconducting devices. We then present detailed case studies of contemporary superconducting detector technologies for photon counting at visible and infrared wavelengths. We conclude with a perspective on future developments in this exciting area.

KEYWORDS:

• single photons
• superconductivity
• nanowires

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Editor Professor Sir Peter Knight for the kind invitation to prepare this topical review. The authors acknowledge support from the UK National Quantum Technology Programme (EP/S026428/1, EP/T001011/1, EP/T0097X/1, ST/T005920/1). The authors are grateful to expert colleagues across the world for giving permission for their work to be included in this topical review. The authors thank Dr Gregor Taylor for his useful comments on the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dmitry V. Morozov

Dmitry V. Morozov is Research Fellow in the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow, UK, which he joined in 2017. He obtained his PhD degree in Radiophysics from Physics Department of Moscow State Pedagogical University, Russia, in 2007. Since then, he held research posts at Cardiff University, working on detector arrays for astronomy instrumentation. In 2012, Dmitry was awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowship to undertake detector development at ISAS/JAXA. His current research is focused on the detection of mid-infrared single photons with superconducting nanowires, detector arrays for far-infrared imaging and on emerging applications in quantum communication and astronomy.

Alessandro Casaburi

Alessandro Casaburi is Senior Lecturer in the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow, UK. He received his PhD from the University of Naples ‘Frederico II’, Italy, in 2010 and won the Italian Physical Society Antonio Barone Prize for the best thesis on the topic of Superconductivity. He held postdoctoral positions at the CNR Cybernetics Institute, Italy, the University of Salerno, Italy, Heriot-Watt University, UK, and a JSPS Fellowship at AIST, Japan. He joined the University of Glasgow in 2013 as a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow and was appointed Lecturer in 2015. His research interests include superconducting detectors and superconducting electronics.

Robert H. Hadfield

Robert Hadfield is Professor of Photonics in the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow, UK. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2003. He carried out postdoctoral research at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from 2003 to 2007. In 2007, he returned to the UK to take up a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at Heriot-Watt University, before joining the University of Glasgow in 2013. He is Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Optica and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He won the 2019 James Joule Medal of the Institute of Physics for his work on superconducting single-photon detectors.