Laboratory of quantum detectors

• Using quantum tomography, we have measured the size of the hot spot in an SSPD made of MoSi. The detected value amounted to 150 nm.

• Our researchers have designed a technology for the production of NbN-Au bilayers with a NbN thickness of 5 nm and a thickness of the gold layer within the range between 2 and 15 nm. The produced structures demonstrate a marked manifestation of the proximity effect: a single superconducting junction at a temperature that is several degrees Kelvin lower than the temperature of an identical single NbN layer.

• We have theoretically demonstrated that an SN bilayer on the basis of a dirty superconductor (S) and a high-conductivity normal metal (N) has a stronger dependence of the kinetic inductive on the current than a single superconducting strip.

• We have analysed experimental data for ultrafast vortex motion with velocities of 10-15 km/s in a Nb-C superconductor. A model has been proposed that describes the instability of vortex motion in this material on the basis of the formation of a chain of vortices near the edge of the sample and their evolution into self-organised Josephson junctions (vortex rivers”. An analysis of the prospects of the use of thin Nb-C films for single-photon detectors has been conducted.

• We have demonstrated the possibility of the use of tunnelling field-effect transistors as highly sensitive detectors of sub-terahertz and terahertz radiation.

Implemented results of research:

Results of the Laboratory's work are used in detector systems developed by Skontel, in particular in bolometers and terahertz range mixers, superconductor detectors of single photons and near infrared ranges.

Education and career development:

• 9 doctoral dissertations and 18 candidate dissertations have been defended.
• We have created over 30 education courses that have been introduced into the curriculum. Among them: «Modern problems of nanostructures physics», «Introduction to to nanoelectronics», «Physics of nanostructures with reduced dimensionality», «Quantum mechanics of multi-electron systems», «Physics of superconducting nanostructures», «Quantum optics and photonics» and others.
• More than 20 monographs have been published.
• The Laboratory has launched the training direction «Fundamental physics (in English)».

Collaborations:

• University of Bristol(UK), Nanjing University (China), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (Switzerland), Institute of Optical Sensor Systems (Germany), School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Cardiff (UK), Yerevan State University (Armenia), Institute of Microstructure Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia), Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia), Institute for Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia): joint research.