Demonstrating Single Photon Counting with Kinetic Inductance Detectors from 3.8 to 25 $\mu$m

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates superconducting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors capable of single-photon counting across a broad mid-infrared spectrum, achieving low dark counts and high resolving power, advancing infrared astronomical observations.

Contribution

The work introduces membrane-based MKID detectors that operate effectively from 3.8 to 25 μm, significantly improving performance over solid-substrate devices in the mid-infrared range.

Findings

Achieved single-photon counting at multiple mid-infrared wavelengths.

Measured resolving powers up to 9.9 with low dark count rates.

Demonstrated phonon-loss limited performance at 3.8 μm.

Abstract

One of the primary objectives of modern astronomy is the atmospheric characterization of Earth-like exoplanets at visible and infrared wavelengths. Achieving this goal requires extremely sensitive detectors capable of measuring faint signal of the exoplanet at the single-photon level while maintaining near-zero dark count rates. In the infrared, however, conventional semiconducting detector technologies struggle to meet these stringent requirements. In this work we demonstrate single-photon counting with superconducting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors at the wavelengths 3.8, 8.5, 18.5, and 25 $\mu$m and measure resolving powers ($E/\delta E$) of 9.9, 5.9, 3.2, and 3.3, respectively, with corresponding dark count rates of 4, 8, 34, and 48 mHz. Our membrane-based devices reach phonon-loss limited performance at 3.8 $\mu$m, more than doubling the performance attainable with comparable solid-substrate devices. These results showcase the detector technology in the mid-infrared and the intricate measurement setup required for these sensitive detectors. We discuss how the detector design and measurement setup can be further optimized to increase the detector performance in the mid-infrared.