Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Single Photon Workshop 2017

Single Photon Workshop 2017 logo

On July 31 - August 4, 2017, NIST hosted the Single Photon Workshop 2017, at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado (USA). SPW2017 was the eighth installment in a series of international workshops on single-photon generation and detection technology and applications. Cutting-edge single-photon technologies are vital to many applications such as quantum cryptography, quantum information processing, quantum imaging, quantum metrology, astrophysics, nuclear physics and biology.

SPW 2017 was intended to bring together a broad range of scientists, engineers and newcomers in the field of single-photon generation and detection for fundamental science and applications. Researchers from universities, industry, and government presented their latest developments in single-photon devices and methods with a view toward improved performance and new application areas. It was an exciting opportunity for those interested in single-photon technologies to learn about the state-of-the-art and to foster continuing partnerships with others seeking to advance the capabilities of such technologies. One day of the workshop was devoted to lab-tours on the campus of NIST.

Thank you, all participants and presenters!

SPW 2017 participants and presenters

Workshop topics:

Single-photon detectors:

  • Single photon avalanche detectors.
  • Superconducting single photon detectors.
  • Single Photon Detector arrays.
  • Photon-number-resolving detectors.
  • Integrated Single Photon Detectors.

Single-photon sources: 

  • Spontaneous parametric downconversion and four-wave-mixing.
  • NV centers.
  • Quantum dots.
  • On-demand single-photon sources.
  • Integrated single-photon sources.
  • Entangled photon-pair sources. 

Metrology: 

  • Methods for characterizing single-photon detectors and sources.
  • Quantum Sensing.
  • Weak measurements.
  • Novel measurement schemes

Applications of single photon technologies: 

  • Quantum communication.
  • Optical quantum-state generation.
  • Quantum random number generators.  
  • Biology/Chemistry.
  • Telecom.
  • Imaging and ranging.
  • Spectroscopy.
Created August 10, 2016, Updated September 25, 2017