Abstract
Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors are becoming a dominant technology in quantum optics and quantum communication, primarily because of their low timing jitter and capability to detect individual low-energy photons with high quantum efficiencies. However, other desirable characteristics, such as high detection rates, operation in cryogenic and high magnetic field environments, or high-efficiency detection of charged particles, are underrepresented in literature, potentially leading to a lack of interest in other fields that might benefit from this technology. We review the progress in use of superconducting nanowire technology in photon and particle detection outside of the usual areas of physics, with emphasis on the potential use in ongoing and future experiments in nuclear and high energy physics.
Highlights
Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPD) have, since their initial discovery [1], found many applications in fields of nanophotonics and quantum communication
One of the interesting potential applications of SNSPDs is in nuclear physics (NP) and high energy physics (HEP), where there is demand for new detector technologies for particle identification, calorimetry, and particle trajectory reconstruction
This is an important consideration for application in mass spectrometry, it might become unimportant for detection of high energy particles in NP and HEP applications, where the penetration depth of MeV and higher energy particles is more than 10 μm [144]
Summary
Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPD) have, since their initial discovery [1], found many applications in fields of nanophotonics and quantum communication. Solution to this equation predict single photon-induced hotspots with sizes on the order of 10–100 nm, which lead to one of the first proposals of the SNSPD devices [36] These models are enough to qualitatively describe the detection process, which can be divided into multiple stages, that are roughly sketched in Figure 1: A very thin and narrow nanowire is maintained well below the superconducting critical temperature TC and is constant-current biased at current values close to critical currents (Figure 1a). This would put nanowire-based particle detector (super)pixels comfortably in the mm-scale and make them competitive with conventional technologies in this aspect. Experiments expecting high radiation fields or high-energy particle bombardment should tend towards use of the crystalline materials, NbN, because Nb has comparatively low neutron capture [98] and scattering [98,99] cross-sections and the short screening length [100,101] makes it more robust against lattice defects
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