Laser & Optoelectronics Progress, Volume. 58, Issue 10, 1011002(2021)

Progress and Applications of Superconducting Nanowire Delay-Line Single-Photon Imagers

Lingdong Kong1,2、†, Qingyuan Zhao1,2、*†, Xuecou Tu1,2, Labao Zhang1,2, Xiaoqing Jia1,2, Lin Kang1,2, Jian Chen1,2, and Peiheng Wu1,2
Author Affiliations
  • 1School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023, China
  • 2Research Institute of Superconductor Electronics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023, China
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    Single-photon imaging is a technology that detects the spatial and temporal information carried by each photon to reconstruct an object image. Single-photon detectors based on superconducting nanowires have the advantages of high efficiency, low time jitter, and wide response spectrum, which is suitable for single-photon imaging applications. The superconducting nanowire delay-line single-photon imager is a novel single-photon imager. It utilizes the high kinetic inductance of the superconducting nanowires to build an ultraslow microwave transmission line. The arrival time and spatial position of photons can be simultaneously measured by reading the arrival times of the output pulses. This study introduces the design principle, geometry structure, and readout method of this imager. Besides, we introduce a single-photon imaging experiment in presence of strong background noise to demonstrate the performance enhancement using the joint optimization of high-performance imaging devices and reconstruction algorithms.

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    Lingdong Kong, Qingyuan Zhao, Xuecou Tu, Labao Zhang, Xiaoqing Jia, Lin Kang, Jian Chen, Peiheng Wu. Progress and Applications of Superconducting Nanowire Delay-Line Single-Photon Imagers[J]. Laser & Optoelectronics Progress, 2021, 58(10): 1011002

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    Paper Information

    Category: Imaging Systems

    Received: Feb. 18, 2021

    Accepted: Mar. 19, 2021

    Published Online: May. 26, 2021

    The Author Email: Zhao Qingyuan (qyzhao@nju.edu.cn)

    DOI:10.3788/LOP202158.1011002

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