Photon counting reconstructive spectrometer combining metasurfaces and superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors
Jingyuan Zheng, You Xiao, Mingzhong Hu, Yuchen Zhao, Hao Li, Lixing You, Xue Feng, Fang Liu, Kaiyu Cui, Yidong Huang, Wei Zhang
Abstract
Faint light spectroscopy has many important applications such as fluorescence spectroscopy, lidar, and astronomical observations. However, the long measurement time limits its application to real-time measurement. In this work, a photon counting reconstructive spectrometer combining metasurfaces and superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors is proposed. A prototype device was fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate, and its performance was characterized. Experiment results show that this device supports spectral reconstruction of mono-color lights with a resolution of 2 nm in the wavelength region of 1500–1600 nm. Its detection efficiency is 1.4%–3.2% in this wavelength region. The measurement time required by the photon counting reconstructive spectrometer was also investigated experimentally, showing its potential to be applied in scenarios requiring real-time measurement.