Resolving photon numbers using a superconducting tapered nanowire detector

Understand

Time- and number-resolved photon detection is crucial for photonic quantum information processing.

• Existing photon-number-resolving (PNR) detectors usually have limited timing and dark-count performance or require complex fabrication and operation.
• Here we demonstrate a PNR detector at telecommunication wavelengths based on a single superconducting nanowire with an integrated impedance-matching taper.
• The prototyping device was able to resolve up to five absorbed photons and had 16.1 ps timing jitter, <2 c.p.s.