Institut für Physik - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Max-Born-Institut
Publications>>Broadband Spectrometer with Single-Photon Sensitivity Exploiting Tailored Disorder
Broadband Spectrometer with Single-Photon Sensitivity Exploiting Tailored Disorder
W. Hartmann, P. Varytis, H. Gehring, N. Walter, F. Beutel, K. Busch, and W.H.P. Pernice (2020)
Nano Letters 20:2625
Summary (expand/hide)
Harnessing tailored disorder for broadband light scattering enables high-resolution signal analysis in nanophotonic spectrometers with a small device footprint. Multiple scattering events in the disordered medium enhance the effective path length which leads to increased resolution. Here we demonstrate an on-chip random spectrometer cointegrated with superconducting single-photon detectors suitable for photon-scarce environments. We combine an efficient broadband fiber-to-chip coupling approach with a random scattering area and broadband transparent silicon nitride waveguides to operate the spectrometer in a diffusive regime. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors at each output waveguide are used to perform spectral-to-spatial mapping via the transmission matrix at the system, allowing us to reconstruct a given probe signal. We show operation over a wide spectral range with sensitivity down to powers of −111.5 dBm in the telecom band.