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RAP opportunity at National Institute of Standards and Technology     NIST

Superconducting nanowire single-photon detector cameras and applications

Location

Physical Measurement Laboratory, Applied Physics Division

opportunity location
50.68.62.C0889 Boulder, CO

NIST only participates in the February and August reviews.

Advisers

name email phone
Adam Nykoruk McCaughan adam.mccaughan@nist.gov 303.497.5487

Description

For the past 50 years, superconducting detectors have offered exceptional sensitivity and speed for detecting faint electromagnetic signals in a wide range of applications. These detectors operate at very low temperatures and generate a minimum of excess noise, making them ideal for testing the non-local nature of reality, investigating dark matter, mapping the early universe and performing quantum computation and communication. Despite their appealing properties, however, there are at present no large-scale superconducting cameras—even the largest demonstrations have never exceeded 20,000 pixels. This is especially true for superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs). These detectors have been demonstrated with system detection efficiencies of 98.0%, sub-3-ps timing jitter, sensitivity from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared and microhertz dark-count rate, but have never achieved an array size larger than a kilopixel. We have recently developed a novel SNSPD camera architecture capable of significantly surpassing this limitation, demonstrating a 400,000-pixel SNSPD camera, a factor of 400 improvement over the state of the art [1]. With a number of immediate applications on the horizon, we invite proposals to investigate the applications of these SNSPD detectors and these newly-developed cameras.  Research opportunities include development of novel SNSPD device technologies, development of quantum and biomedical imaging applications, and incorporation of these cameras into future NASA space-telescopes such as the upcoming successor to the Hubble/James Webb missions.

[1] B. G. Oripov, D. S. Rampini, J. Allmaras, M. D. Shaw, S. W. Nam, B. Korzh & A. N. McCaughan. A superconducting nanowire single-photon camera with 400,000 pixels. Nature 622, 730–734 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06550-2 

key words
snspd; sspd; camera; biomedical; quantum; imaging; physics; electrical engineering; astronomy; astrophysics; fabrication; photon; nanowire;

Eligibility

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens
Level:  Open to Postdoctoral applicants

Stipend

Base Stipend Travel Allotment Supplementation
$82,764.00 $3,000.00
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