Calibration of free-space and fiber-coupled single-photon detectors

Published

September 14, 2020

Author(s)

Thomas Gerrits, Alan L. Migdall, Joshua C. Bienfang, John H. Lehman, Sae Woo Nam, Oliver T. Slattery, Jolene D. Splett, Igor Vayshenker, Chih-Ming Wang

Abstract

We present our measurements of the detection efficiency of free-space and fiber-coupled single- photon detectors at wavelengths near 851 nm and 1533.6 nm. We investigate the spatial uniformity of one free-space-coupled silicon single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) and present a comparison between fusion-spliced and connectorized fiber-coupled single-photon detectors. We find that our expanded relative uncertainty for a single measurement of the detection efficiency is as low as 0.7 % for fiber-coupled measurements at 1533.6 nm and as high as 1.8 % for our free-space characterization at 851.8 nm.

Conference Dates

September 14-17, 2020

Conference Location

virtual, MD

Conference Title

Quantum 2.0 Conference

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

single photon detectors, single photon detector calibration, single photon metrology

Citation

Gerrits, T. , Migdall, A. , Bienfang, J. , Lehman, J. , Nam, S. , Slattery, O. , Splett, J. , Vayshenker, I. and Wang, C. (2020), Calibration of free-space and fiber-coupled single-photon detectors, Quantum 2.0 Conference, virtual, MD, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=931118 (Accessed June 20, 2025)