Josephson junction infrared single-photon detector

Abstract

A junction for single-photon detection Josephson junctions are simple superconducting devices comprising an insulator or semiconductor separating two superconducting regions. They form the workhorse of superconducting technologies and are exquisitely sensitive to magnetic field. One long-sought proposal has been to use these devices to detect light. Walsh et al. have realized a photosensitive Josephson junction based on graphene that is capable of sensing single infrared photons. Such a photosensitive Josephson junction is expected to operate as a high-speed, low-power consumption optical interconnect for communication between superconducting-based supercomputers and quantum computers. Science, this issue p. 409 A graphene-based Josephson junction device is designed to detect single infrared photons. Josephson junctions are superconducting devices used as high-sensitivity magnetometers and voltage amplifiers as well as the basis of high-performance cryogenic computers and superconducting quantum computers. Although device performance can be degraded by the generation of quasiparticles formed from broken Cooper pairs, this phenomenon also opens opportunities to sensitively detect electromagnetic radiation. We demonstrate single near-infrared photon detection by coupling photons to the localized surface plasmons of a graphene-based Josephson junction. Using the photon-induced switching statistics of the current-biased device, we reveal the critical role of quasiparticles generated by the absorbed photon in the detection mechanism. The photon sensitivity will enable a high-speed, low-power optical interconnect for future superconducting computing architectures.