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 April 19, 2024)
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The thermally-coupled imager: A scalable readout architecture for superconducting nanowire single photon
Published
Author(s)
, Yao Zhai, Boris Korzh, Jason Allmaras, , Matthew Shaw,
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
Created June 7, 2023, Updated December 12, 2023