The thermally-coupled imager: A scalable readout architecture for superconducting nanowire single photon

Published

June 7, 2023

Author(s)

Adam McCaughan, Yao Zhai, Boris Korzh, Jason Allmaras, Bakhrom Oripov, Matthew Shaw, Sae Woo Nam

Abstract

Although superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are a promising technology for quantum optics, metrology, and astronomy, they currently lack a readout architecture that is scalable to the megapixel regime and beyond. In this work, we have designed and demonstrated such an architecture for SNSPDs, called the thermally-coupled imager (TCI). The TCI uses a combination of time-of-flight delay lines and thermal coupling to create a scalable architecture that can scale to large array sizes, allows neighboring detectors to operate independently, and requires only four microwave readout lines to operate no matter the size of the array. We give an overview of how the architecture functions, and demonstrate a proof-of-concept $32\times32$ imaging array. The array was able to image a free-space focused spot at 373 nm, count at 9.6 Mcps, and resolve photon location with greater than 99.83\% distinguishability.

Citation

Applied Physics Letters

Pub Type

Journals

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Citation

McCaughan, A. , Zhai, Y. , Korzh, B. , Allmaras, J. , Oripov, B. , Shaw, M. and Nam, S. (2023), The thermally-coupled imager: A scalable readout architecture for superconducting nanowire single photon, Applied Physics Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=934376 (Accessed May 21, 2025)