A highly sensitive broadband superconducting thermoelectric single-photon detector

Abstract

We propose a passive single-photon detector based on the bipolar thermoelectric effect occurring in tunnel junctions between two different superconductors thanks to spontaneous electron–hole symmetry breaking. Our superconducting thermoelectric detector (STED) converts a finite temperature difference caused by the absorption of a single photon into an open circuit thermovoltage. Designed with feasible parameters, our STED is able to reveal single photons of frequency ranging from ∼15 GHz to ∼150 PHz depending on the chosen design and materials. In particular, this detector is expected to show values of the signal-to-noise ratio SNR ∼ 15 at ν = 50 GHz when operated at a temperature of 10 mK. Interestingly, this device can be viewed as a digital single-photon detector, since it generates an almost constant voltage VS for the full operation energies. Our STED can reveal single photons in a frequency range wider than four decades with the possibility to discern the energy of the incident photon by measuring the time persistence of the generated thermovoltage. Its broadband operation suggests that our STED could find practical applications in several fields of quantum science and technology, such as quantum computing, telecommunications, optoelectronics, THz spectroscopy, and astro-particle physics.