ABSTRACT
Coupling light into a vacuum system is a non-trivial problem, requiring the use of a specialized feed-through. This feed-through must be both leak tight and offer a low optical loss if it is to be suitable for general use. In this paper, we report on the development of an extremely simple yet versatile, low cost, demountable optical fiber vacuum feed-through based on the modification of a standard optical fiber bulkhead connector. The modified connector was found to have a leak rate of 6.6 ± 2.1 × 10(-6) mbar l/s and an optical loss of -0.41 ± 0.28 dB, making it suitable for use in high vacuum applications.
ABSTRACT
We propose and develop a readout scheme for superconducting single-photon detectors based on an integrated circuit, relaxing the need for large bandwidth amplification and resulting in voltage steps proportional to the number of detected photons. We also demonstrate time gating, to filter scattered light in time and reduce dark counts. This could lead to a higher signal-to-noise ratio. The gate pulse is generated on the detection of a photon created by a spontaneous parametric down-conversion source, heralding the presence of a second photon. These two schemes could find applications within advanced multi-array imaging detection systems.