Title: NIST Team Wins Silver Medal for Breakthrough in Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors
A team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been awarded a prestigious Silver Medal for their groundbreaking work in developing an array of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs). The team, led by Varun Verma, Adriana Lita, Richard Mirin, Sae Woo Nam, Thomas Gerrits, Martin Stevens, and Robert Horansky, has successfully created an SNSPD array with over 1,000 pixels, representing a significant improvement in size and pixel count compared to conventional arrays.
The NIST team’s achievement is particularly notable because their SNSPD array exhibits over one hundred million times better noise properties than traditional arrays. This breakthrough has important implications for various applications that require imaging at extremely low light levels, such as astronomy, deep space communications, and medical imaging. The team’s technology is already being adopted by industry, demonstrating its potential for real-world applications.
The Silver Medal award recognizes the team’s exceptional scientific achievement and their contribution to advancing the field of quantum technologies. Their work has the potential to revolutionize the way we capture and detect single photons, enabling new possibilities in quantum communication, computing, and sensing.
Keywords: superconducting, nanowire, detectors
