Far-infrared photon-counting arrays based on superconducting nanowires

The 2020 decadal survey prioritized a broad range of far-infrared science related to astrochemical signatures of planet formation, buildup of galaxies, heavy elements, and interstellar dust from the first galaxies to today. Additionally, improved long wavelength observations enable instruments to peer through dusty gas, to reveal regions of high mass star formation. The short wavelength end of this region, namely 25-120 um, is particularly lacking in detector arrays with high sensitivity. Photon-counting detectors would present the ultimate solution for an imaging and spectroscopic survey at the fundamental limits of sensitivity. A 2023 proof-of-principle demonstration has enabled a superconducting nanowire detector (SNSPD) to count individual photons at 29 um with unity internal detection efficiency, which opens up the door to this possibility. This project will enable high efficiency single-photon counting in the entire 25-120 um range, which will be achieved through the optimization of superconducting nanowire materials as well investigations of post-fabrication processing such as ion-bombardment which has been demonstrated to improve the internal detection efficiency. Material studies such as this also hold promise to increase the operating temperature of these sensors, from 0.25 K used currently, to above 1 K, which would simplify future instrument requirements. SNSPDs are truly digital detectors, which drastically reduces the number of potential noise sources, when compared with bolometric counterparts. We will demonstrate noise equivalent powers (NEP) of <1e-20 W/Hz^1/2 in these far-infrared detectors, through the use of efficient antenna-coupling schemes. The sensitivity of these sensors will be characterized using low-power and broadband thermal sources coupled with metal-mesh filters. To calibrate the photon flux on the sensor, an existing SNSPD cryostat will be instrumented with a cryogenic integrating sphere, coupled with a calibrated power meter. To date, far-infrared SNSPD demonstrations have been limited to single-pixels, while meaningful science cameras would require on the order of 1,000 pixels or larger. To address this challenge, we will investigate two promising multiplexing and readout architectures: frequency-domain multiplexing based on tunable superconducting resonators as well as integrated superconducting shift-registers. The digital nature of superconducting shift-registers, in particular, holds promise to reduce the system-level power dissipation by an order of magnitude, compared to current schemes used for far-infrared detector arrays. We will thus demonstrate arrays of far-infrared SNSPDs which are scalable to array formats required for future balloon, probe-class, and flagship far-infrared missions.

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