Chapter 3 Research of Single Photon Detectors Applied in Quantum Communication

摘要

Single photon detector (SPD) is one of the key components in quantum communication (QC). To compare the capabilities of SPDs, this paper discussed the current technology of different SPDs and took some experiments. The results show avalanche photodiode (APD) can't satisfy the development of QC. The count rate of Superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) is much higher than APD and the other SPDs, which proves that SNSPD is feasible for high speed QC. And the lower dark count rate of SNSPD makes the lower error rate and the safer communication. Though there are some technical challenges in applications, SNSPD will have broad prospects in QC.