time: 16:00 hrs

Location: Zaal E

Near-infrared single-photodetection is a key technology in communication and metrology applications, particularly in applications requiring exploitation of basic quantum-mechanical effects such as photon-state entanglement. These applications make demands on detector speed and efficiency that existing technologies cannot satisfy. To address this problem, superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors exploit interesting electronic, thermal and optical phenomena occurring at the nanoscale in superconductors to detect single photons in the technologically important 1550-nm-optical-wavelength range. I will present the current state of the art of these devices and their applications, discuss recent development of optical nanoantennas for the devices, and finally present a new variant of the nanowire photodetector which may provide speed and efficiency improvements over prior versions.