TY - JOUR
T1 - Superconducting nanowire photon-number-resolving detector at telecommunication wavelengths
AU - Divochiy, A.
AU - Marsili, F.
AU - Bitauld, D.M.J.
AU - Gaggero, A.
AU - Leoni, R.
AU - Mattioli, F.
AU - Korneev, A.
AU - Seleznev, V.
AU - Kaurova, N.
AU - Minaeva, O.
AU - Gol'tsman, G.N.
AU - Lagoudakis, K.G.
AU - Benkhaoul, M.
AU - Lévy, F.A.
AU - Fiore, A.
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - Optical-to-electrical conversion, which is the basis of theoperation of optical detectors, can be linear or nonlinear.When high sensitivities are needed, single-photon detectorsare used, which operate in a strongly nonlinear mode, theirresponse being independent of the number of detectedphotons. However, photon-number-resolving detectors areneeded, particularly in quantum optics, where n-photon statesare routinely produced. In quantum communication andquantum information processing, the photon-numberresolvingfunctionality is key to many protocols, such as theimplementation of quantum repeaters1 and linear-opticsquantum computing2. A linear detector with single-photonsensitivity can also be used for measuring a temporalwaveform at extremely low light levels, such as in longdistanceoptical communications, fluorescence spectroscopyand optical time-domain reflectometry. We demonstrate here aphoton-number-resolving detector based on parallelsuperconducting nanowires and capable of counting up to fourphotons at telecommunication wavelengths, with an ultralowdark count rate and high counting frequency.
AB - Optical-to-electrical conversion, which is the basis of theoperation of optical detectors, can be linear or nonlinear.When high sensitivities are needed, single-photon detectorsare used, which operate in a strongly nonlinear mode, theirresponse being independent of the number of detectedphotons. However, photon-number-resolving detectors areneeded, particularly in quantum optics, where n-photon statesare routinely produced. In quantum communication andquantum information processing, the photon-numberresolvingfunctionality is key to many protocols, such as theimplementation of quantum repeaters1 and linear-opticsquantum computing2. A linear detector with single-photonsensitivity can also be used for measuring a temporalwaveform at extremely low light levels, such as in longdistanceoptical communications, fluorescence spectroscopyand optical time-domain reflectometry. We demonstrate here aphoton-number-resolving detector based on parallelsuperconducting nanowires and capable of counting up to fourphotons at telecommunication wavelengths, with an ultralowdark count rate and high counting frequency.
U2 - 10.1038/nphoton.2008.51
DO - 10.1038/nphoton.2008.51
M3 - Article
SN - 1749-4885
VL - 2
SP - 302
EP - 306
JO - Nature Photonics
JF - Nature Photonics
IS - 5
ER -