Verma, V.
, Nam, S.
, Charaev, I.
, Colangelo, M.
, Berggren, K.
and Hochberg, Y.
(2019),
Detecting Sub-GeV Dark Matter with Superconducting Nanowires, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=927533
(Accessed November 23, 2025)
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Detecting Sub-GeV Dark Matter with Superconducting Nanowires
Published
Author(s)
, Sae Woo Nam, Ilya Charaev, Marco Colangelo, Karl Berggren, Yonit Hochberg
Abstract
We propose the use of superconducting nanowires as both target and sensor for direct detection of light dark matter. With excellent sensitivity to low-energy deposits on electrons, and demonstrated low dark counts, such devices could be used to probe electron recoils from dark matter scattering and absorption processes. We demonstrate the feasibility of this idea using measurements of an existing fabricated nanowire prototype with sub-eV energy threshold, which already places meaningful bounds on dark matter-electron interactions, including the strongest terrestrial bounds on sub-eV dark photon absorption. Future expected fabrication on larger scales should enable probing new territory in the direct detection landscape, establishing the complementarity of this approach to other existing proposals.Citation
Physical Review Letters
Pub Type
Journals
Download Paper
Keywords
dark matter, superconducting nanowire
Citation
Issues
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Created October 10, 2019, Updated September 29, 2025