Środowiskowe Seminarium z Informacji i Technologii Kwantowych

In this talk, I will discuss our recent results on the working mechanism of nanowire superconducting single photon detectors (SSPDs). I will present experimental results on energy-current relation, position dependence of the detection efficiency, hotspot size and timing jitter. I will present numerical modeling of the detection mechanism using a combination of quasiparticle diffusion, current continuity and vortex entry. Together, these results sketch out a basic framework for a complete theory of the SSPD detection mechanism, and provide us with the opportunity of computing basic SSPD properties ab initio.