Kinetic inductance current sensor for visible to near-infrared wavelength transition-edge sensor readout

TL;DR

This paper introduces a scalable kinetic inductance current sensor for visible to near-infrared transition-edge sensors, enabling high-bandwidth, low-noise readout suitable for large arrays in quantum imaging and photonics.

Contribution

The authors develop and demonstrate a kinetic inductance current sensor that replaces SQUIDs, offering scalable, microwave multiplexed readout for large TES arrays in the visible to near-infrared range.

Findings

Achieved 3.7 MHz bandwidth in readout

Measured 1.4 pA/√Hz noise level

Obtained energy resolution of 0.137 eV at 0.8 eV

Abstract

Single-photon detectors based on the superconducting transition-edge sensor are used in a number of visible to near-infrared applications, particularly for photon-number-resolving measurements in quantum information science. To be practical for large-scale spectroscopic imaging or photonic quantum computing applications, the size of visible to near-infrared transition-edge sensor arrays and their associated readouts must be increased from a few pixels to many thousands. In this manuscript, we introduce the kinetic inductance current sensor, a scalable readout technology that exploits the nonlinear kinetic inductance in a superconducting resonator to make sensitive current measurements. Kinetic inductance current sensors can replace superconducting quantum interference devices for many applications because of their ability to measure fast, high slew-rate signals, their compatibility with standard microwave frequency-division multiplexing techniques, and their relatively simple fabrication. Here, we demonstrate the readout of a visible to near-infrared transition-edge sensor using a kinetic inductance current sensor with 3.7 MHz of bandwidth. We measure a readout noise of 1.4 pA/$\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$, considerably below the detector noise at frequencies of interest, and an energy resolution of $(0.137 \pm 0.001)$ eV at 0.8 eV, comparable to resolutions observed with non-multiplexed superconducting quantum interference device readouts.