Multifunctional Superconducting Nanowire Quantum Sensors

Abstract

Superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDs) offer high-quantum-efficiency and low-dark-count-rate single photon detection. In a growing number of cases, large magnetic fields are being incorporated into quantum microscopes, nanophotonic devices, and sensors for nuclear and high-energy physics that rely on SNSPDs, but superconducting devices generally operate poorly in large magnetic fields. Here, we demonstrate robust performance of amorphous SNSPDs in magnetic fields of up to $\pm 6$ T with a negligible dark count rate and unchanged quantum efficiency at typical bias currents. Critically, we also show that in the electrothermal oscillation regime, the SNSPD can be used as a magnetometer with sensitivity of better than 100 $\mu T/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ and as a thermometer with sensitivity of 20 $\mu K/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ at 1 K. Thus, a single photon detector integrated into a quantum device can be used as a multifunctional quantum sensor capable of describing the temperature and magnetic field on-chip simply by varying the bias current to change the operating modality from single photon detection to thermometry or magnetometry.

References in corpus (6)

• Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors: physics and applications
• Vortex-induced dissipation in narrow current-biased thin-film superconducting strips
• Characteristics of superconducting tungsten silicide WxSi1-x for single photon detection
• Detection Mechanism in SNSPD: Numerical Results of a Conceptually Simple, Yet Powerful Detection Model
• Different single photon response of wide and narrow superconducting MoSi strips
• Magnetic-field dependence of count rates in superconducting thin-film TaN single-photon detectors

Cited by in corpus (1)

• New Constraints on Dark Photon Dark Matter with Superconducting Nanowire Detectors in an Optical Haloscope