Credit: J. Burrus/NIST
As part of a research project to help establish standards for photon-counting detectors, NIST physicist Thomas Gerrits adjusts the laser beam hitting a detector. The squiggly overhead light helps researchers see the lab setup without disturbing the detectors, which are insensitive to blue light.
Since the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) built its first superconducting devices for counting photons (the smallest units of light) in the 1990s, these once-rare detectors have become popular research tools all over the world. Now, NIST has taken a step toward enabling universal standards for these devices, which are becoming increasingly important in science and industry.
Single-photon detectors (SPDs) are now key to research areas ranging from optical communications and astrophysics to cutting-edge information technologies based on quantum physics, such as quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation.
To ensure their accuracy and reliability, SPDs need to be evaluated and compared to some benchmark, ideally a formal standard. NIST researchers are developing methods to do that and have already started to perform custom calibrations for the handful of companies that make SPDs.
The NIST team has just published methods for measuring the efficiency of five SPDs, including one made at NIST, as a prelude to offering an official calibration service.
“This is a first step towards implementation of a quantum standard — we produced a tool to verify a future single-photon detection standard,” NIST physicist Thomas Gerrits said. “There is no standard right now, but many national metrology institutes, including NIST, are working on this.”
“There have been journal papers on this topic before, but we did in-depth unce ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
