A Multiplexed Detector With 1,024 Bins Counts Photons Precisely: Uncertainty Below One Photon at up to 276 Photons, in Optica
Researchers at Paderborn University in Germany described in Optica a detection system that combines superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors with multiplexing to create 1,024 detection bins, and can precisely count from zero to more than 9,000 individual photons. The paper, by Timon Schapeler and co-authors, is titled Macroscopic photon counting beating the Poisson noise limit, with digital object identifier 10.1364/optica.604389. The system splits one light pulse into 128 smaller pulses separated in time and then onto eight detectors, producing 1,024 smaller pulses that share the original number of photons between them. Together with model-informed characterization of each detection bin, the team measured light pulses containing up to 276 photons with an uncertainty smaller than a single photon. The researchers said a conventional multiplexed system would need about 37,000 detector elements to achieve the same precision, compared with their 1,024 detection bins. In testing, laser pulses sent to the device carried average photon numbers per pulse between one and 15,000. Schapeler said precisely counting photons becomes more challenging as their numbers increase, and that the approach extends photon counting to larger numbers of photons, bridging the gap between single-photon measurements and high-sensitivity optical power meters. Team member Tim Bartley said large-scale measurement of individual photons is a cornerstone of photonic quantum computing and single-photon-level imaging. The researchers plan to apply the system next to bright quantum states of light.
(Source: Optica)
Source: Optica
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：实验室中的激光光学装置。Idaho National Laboratory，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Idaho National Laboratory, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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