Excellence line

One of the most promising approach to ensure a secure communication is Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), a quantum cryptography method to produce and share encryption keys. Moreover, quantum internet can enable sending and receiving quantum bits (qubits) over a large network, paving the way to cloud quantum computing. Here, single photon detection is the key enabling technology.

Space-based Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) enables global secure communication by transmitting quantum states, like single photons, between satellites and ground stations. In Optical Ground Stations (OGS), SNSPDs are vital for their ultra-low dark counts, reducing detection noise, and low timing jitter, ensuring precise photon detection. These features enhance the efficiency and security of quantum key generation, making SNSPDs indispensable for Space QKD.

Quantum information leverages principles like superposition and entanglement to process, store, and transmit data, forming the foundation of quantum computing and communication. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors are crucial in these systems due to their high detection efficiency and ability to handle high photon rates, ensuring accurate and reliable measurements of quantum states critical for these technologies.

Deep space optical communication enables high-speed data transmission across vast distances, using laser-based systems for greater efficiency than traditional radio waves. This technology, tested in the Psyche mission in collaboration with ESA and NASA, showcases its potential for interplanetary data links. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors are integral to these systems, offering exceptional sensitivity and low noise, ensuring reliable signal reception even over extreme distances.

Photonics Quantum Computing relies on manipulating photons to perform quantum operations, offering scalability and room-temperature operation advantages. Photon-number-resolving (PNR) SNSPDs are crucial in this field, enabling precise measurement of photon states, which is essential for error correction and complex quantum algorithms.

LiDAR Measurements use laser pulses to map environments with high precision, critical for applications like autonomous navigation and environmental monitoring. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors enhance LiDAR performance with their high sensitivity and fast recovery times, enabling detection of faint reflections and operation over long distances.

• A comparative analysis of InGaAs SPADs and SNSPDs in entanglement-based Quantum communications (2024) –  IEEE Explore
• Continuous entanglement distribution over a transnational 248 km fiber link (2022) – Nature Communication
• Photon-number entanglement generated by sequential excitation of a two-level atom (2022)  – Nature Photonics
• 600-km repeater-like quantum communications with dual-band stabilization (2021) – Nature Photonics
• Two-photon quantum interference and entanglement at 2.1 μm (2020) – Science Advances

• Photon bound state dynamics from a single artificial atom (2023) – Nature Physics
• High-rate entanglement between a semiconductor spin and indistinguishable photons (2023) – Nature Photonics
• Electro-Optical Sampling of Single-Cycle THz Fields with Single-Photon Detectors (2022) – Nature Communication
• Direct-bandgap emission from hexagonal Ge and SiGe alloys (2020) – Nature
• A gated quantum dot strongly coupled to an optical microcavity (2019) – Nature

• Deep Mouse Brain Two-Photon Near-Infrared Fluorescence Imaging Using a Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector Array (2024) – ACS Publications
• Integration of a superconducting nanowire detector into a confocal microscope for TRPL-mapping: Sensitivity and time resolution (2023) – AIP Publishing
• Interstitial null-distance time-domain diffuse optical spectroscopy using a superconducting nanowire detector (2023) – PubMed
• Deep confocal fluorescence microscopy with single-photon superconducting nanowire detector (2023) – SPIE Digital Library
• In vivo non-invasive confocal fluorescence imaging beyond 1,700 nm using superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (2022)  – Nature Nanotechnology

• High-performance photon number resolving detectors for 850–950 nm wavelength range (2024) – APL Photonics
• Ultra-high system detection efficiency superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors for quantum photonics and life sciences (2022) – Optica CLEO Journal
• Efficient mid-infrared single-photon detection using superconducting NbTiN nanowires with high time resolution in a Gifford-McMahon cryocooler (2022) – Optica Photonics Research
• Detecting telecom single photons with 99.5% system detection efficiency and high time resolution (2021) – APL Photonics
• Multimode-fiber-coupled superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors with high detection efficiency and time resolution (2019) – Optica Applied Optics