Detector

The SUPERTWIN Consortium will develop single-photon detector arrays with data pre-processing capabilities for capturing spatio-temporal multi-photon interference patterns.

In order to achieve a high resolution in both the spatial and temporal domains, a new sensor will be designed and manufactured in CMOS technology, taking advantage of the experience acquired in previous European FP7 projects MEGAFRAME (FET-OPEN) and SPADnet (ICT). The sensor will integrate on the same substrate arrays of Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs) along with the electronics required to record the relative position and time-of-arrival of photons.

From this perspective, SUPERTWIN poses two major challenges.

One lies in the design of a smart architecture capable of inferring high-order field correlation functions of the back-scattered photons while minimizing the rate of false events caused by background light and detector noise.

The second is a technology optimization process to maximize the sensor sensitivity in the near infrared region of the spectrum, that corresponds to the wavelengths at which emitters generate entangled photons.

In parallel, SUPERTWIN will assess Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors (SNSPDs), an emerging technology that provides high performance in terms of sensitivity, timing and noise.