Single-photon detectors are increasingly becoming an essential tool for a  wide range of applications in physics, chemistry, biology,  communications, medicine, and remote sensing.   Ideally, a single photon  detector generates a measurable signal only when a single photon is  absorbed.  Furthermore, the ideal detector would have 100% detection  efficiency, no false positive (dark counts), and transform-limited  timing resolution.  Recently, there has been tremendous progress in the  development of superconducting devices with nearly ideal performance.  There have been significant effort to package superconducting detectors into systems that could be used in real-world applications.  I  will review a few technological breakthroughs detector design / performance, will briefly review a few applications relevant to  government/national science, security, and standards, and will describe  potential future possibilities.

Drinks are served after the colloquium at the QuTech coffee table.