Temporal array with superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors for photon-number resolution

Abstract

We present an experimental realization of a 16 element, temporal-array, photon-number-resolving (PNR) detector, which is a multiplexed single-photon detector that splits an input signal over multiple time bins, and the time bins are detected using two superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPD). A theoretical investigation of the PNR capabilities of the detector is performed and it is concluded that, compared to a single-photon detector, our array detector can resolve one order of magnitude higher mean photon numbers, given the same number of input pulses to measure. This claim is experimentally verified and we show that the detector can accurately predict photon numbers between 10-3 and 102. Our present detector is incapable of single-shot photon-number measurements with high precision since its effective quantum efficiency is 49%. Using SNSPDs with a higher quantum efficiency the PNR performance will improve, but the photon-number resolution will still be limited by the array size.