# Detecting Dark Matter with Superconducting Nanowires

## TL;DR

This paper proposes superconducting nanowires as a novel method for direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter, demonstrating feasibility and setting new bounds on dark matter-electron interactions.

## Contribution

It introduces a new detection approach using superconducting nanowires and provides experimental evidence of its potential for dark matter detection.

## Key findings

- Demonstrated a tungsten-silicide nanowire with 0.8 eV energy threshold
- Placed the strongest terrestrial bounds on sub-eV dark photon absorption
- Showed no dark counts in a 10,000-second measurement

## Abstract

We propose the use of superconducting nanowires as both target and sensor for direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter. With excellent sensitivity to small energy deposits on electrons, and demonstrated low dark counts, such devices could be used to probe electron recoils from dark matter scattering and absorption processes. We demonstrate the feasibility of this idea using measurements of an existing fabricated tungsten-silicide nanowire prototype with 0.8 eV energy threshold and 4.3 nanograms with 10 thousand seconds of exposure, which showed no dark counts. The results from this device already place meaningful bounds on dark matter-electron interactions, including the strongest terrestrial bounds on sub-eV dark photon absorption to date. Future expected fabrication on larger scales and with lower thresholds should enable probing new territory in the direct detection landscape, establishing the complementarity of this approach to other existing proposals.