A high-performance thermoelectric single-photon detector for telecom wavelengths

Abstract

In this work the problem is solved to achieve high detection efficiency of TSPD for telecommunication systems. A fourlayer detection pixel of TSPD is proposed which consists of a photon absorber, thermoelectric sensor and the heat sink that also play the role of an electrical contact. The computer modeling was carried out using the equation for heat propagation from a limited volume and of the three-dimensional matrix method for differential equations. The results of computer simulation of heat propagation processes in the four-layer detection pixel of TSPD after the absorption of single photons with the 0.8 eV energy (λ = 1550 nm) are presented. Various geometries of the detection pixel consisting of lanthanum hexaboride nanoparticles as absorber material, the cerium hexaboride as a thermoelectric sensor and tungsten as electrical contact and heat sink are considered. It is shown that a TSPD with a four-layer detection pixel will have the gigahertz count rate and detection efficiency exceeding 90%. Taking into account the advantages of TSPD over the other types of detectors it can be argued that the four-layer detection pixel of the thermoelectric detector has strong prospects to solve a number of single-photon detection tasks.