Conveners
WG4: Quantum and Superconducting Detectors
- Michael Jewell (Yale University)
- Cristián Peña (Fermilab)
WG4: Quantum and Superconducting Detectors
- Cristián Peña (Fermilab)
- Michael Jewell (Yale University)
WG4: Quantum and Superconducting Detectors
- Michael Jewell (Yale University)
- Julian Martinez-Rincon (Brookhaven National Lab)
- Cristián Peña (Fermilab)
WG4: Quantum and Superconducting Detectors
- Cristián Peña (Fermilab)
- Michael Jewell (Yale University)
- Julian Martinez-Rincon (Brookhaven National Lab)
Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) are world-leading detectors for time-resolved single photon counting from the UV to the infrared. We will survey the latest progress in the field of SNSPDs, and discuss recent progress as a community in reducing the energy threshold (as low as 70 meV), increasing the active area (to the 1 mm 2 scale and beyond), and reducing the dark...
Sub-eV threshold particle detectors are an area of burgeoning interest, driven in part by needing to probe the increasingly theoretically relevant sub-GeV mass dark matter parameter space. One promising technology to use is Quantum Capacitance Detectors (QCDs), which are superconducting quantum mechanical circuitry that have heritage in the quantum computing world. QCDs have been demonstrated...
The Quantum Capacitance Detector (QCD) is a high-sensitivity direct detector under development for low background applications such as far-infrared spectroscopy from a cold space telescope. The QCD has demonstrated an optically-measured noise equivalent power of 2x10-20 W⋅Hz1/2 at 1.5 THz, making it among the most sensitive far-infrared (IR) detectors systems ever demonstrated. It has...
Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) have rapidly emerged as a leading detector type for time-correlated single photon counting from the UV to the near-infrared. Due to their unique combination of low energy thresholds and low intrinsic dark count rates, SNSPDs have become attractive as sensors in novel experiments that seek to probe the poorly explored sub-GeV dark matter...
Multiple mechanisms allow energy accumulation in materials and delayed releases. Interactions between excitations, defects, or other configurations carrying excess energy can lead to correlated energy releases and phenomena like self-organization in systems with energy flow. Exact modeling of these phenomena is often impossible because of insufficient knowledge of interactions. Comparison and...
Improved quantum sensing of photons from astronomical objects could provide high resolution observations in the optical benefiting numerous fields in astrophysics and cosmology. It has been recently proposed that stations in optical interferometers would not require a phase-stable optical link if instead sources of quantum-mechanically entangled pairs could be provided to them, enabling...
Long baseline atom interferometry offers new opportunities to expand the search for ultra-light dark matter, mid-band gravitational waves, and very weakly-coupled fifth forces. In this context, we developed a novel light-field imaging system that captures multiple views of an atom cloud with a single shot while also maximizing light collection. This enables a single-shot, 3D tomographic...
The QSNET consortium is building a network of next-generation atomic and molecular clocks that will achieve unprecedented sensitivity to variations of the fine structure constant, α, and the electron-to- proton mass ratio, μ. Variations in α can arise in a wide range of theories that extend the standard model, and constrain a wide range of models of ultra-light dark matter. An outline of the...
Distributed quantum sensing promises paths to accelerate the development of time synchronization [1], sensing capabilities of gravity gradients and magnetic fields [2], and to advance the search of new physics [3,4]. Classical networks of magnetometers are already in place for the search of dark matter axions [5]. However, it is still an open question how to best entangle a large network of...
A number of low mass dark matter direct detection experiments have observed an excess rate of events, rising sharply below energies of around 100 eV. A similar source of background energy has been observed to shorten the coherence time of superconducting quantum bits by creating excess quasiparticles in the qubit circuit. The relaxation of stress in detector materials has been shown to cause...
BREAD is a broadband search for axions, axion-like particles, and other wave dark matter in the $1 \ \mu \mathrm{eV}$ to $1 \ \mathrm{eV}$ range using a reflector which can fit inside high-field solenoidal magnets. This talk will focus on the hardware developments for gigaBREAD, a room temperature, gigahertz frequency search for the dark photon and our first test of the BREAD reflector...
Developments over the last decade have pushed the search for particle dark matter to new frontiers, including the keV-scale lower mass limit for thermally-produced dark matter. Galactic dark matter at this mass is kinematically matched with the energy needed to break a Cooper pair (~meV), making quantum sensors ideally-suited for dark matter detection applications. At Fermilab, we are...
Dark photons and axions can be converted to photons at the interface between dielectrics with different indices of refraction. Dielectric haloscopes take advantage of this by using stacks of dielectric layers with alternating indices of refraction to boost the photon generation rate from the dark sector [1]. Recent proof-of-concept results from the LAMPOST experiment at MIT [2] and the MuDHI...
The BREAD(Broadband Reflector Experiment for Axion Detection) experiment searches for axions and wave-like dark matter using a novel dish resonator which allows to utilize state-of-the-art high-field solenoidal magnets. The axion target mass extends from ~𝜇eV to eV, this large mass range makes it difficult to scale traditional resonator setups to the required volume. However, metallic surfaces...
The HeRALD experiment uses the unique properties of superfluid $^4$He to study dark matter-nucleon scattering in the sub-GeV mass range. In particular, HeRALD uses quantum evaporation from vibrational quasiparticles as well as singlet and triplet electronic excitations to determine the energy and nature of particle interaction in the detector. In this talk I will present progress towards the...
Developing transition edge sensors (TES) with low energy thresholds is a central focus of the TESSERACT (TES with Sub-EV Resolution And Cryogenic Targets) project. The goal is to develop a TES-based sensor that can serve light dark matter experiments with different targets, including GaAs, Al2O3, SiO2, and superfluid helium. The sensor uses Aluminum (Al) collection films to convert athermal...
We present preliminary data from a laser-scanning microscopy-based technique for measuring 100µm-scale quasiparticle (QP) diffusion in superconducting Al films. QP are produced at a localized origin in the Al film using a focused 1550nm laser coupled to a single-mode optical fiber mounted on piezoelectric nanopositioners. The resulting QP propagation can then be monitored using a transition...
Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$\nu$NS) offers a valuable approach in searching for physics beyond the Standard Model. The Ricochet neutrino experiment aims to perform a precision measurement of the CE$\nu$NS spectrum at the ILL nuclear reactor with cryogenic solid-state detectors. The experiment will employ an array of 36 detectors, each with a mass of around 30 g and a...
Several applications in High Energy Physics and Quantum Information require extending the spectral sensitivity of photon detectors at wavelengths in the IR spectral range beyond what is achievable with Si or Ge but maintaining high sensitivity. III-Vs semiconductors, PbSe/PbTe and InGaAs/AlGaAs have been dominating the scene, but they cannot be monolithically integrated on Si platform. We...
As the search for dark matter moves toward the sub-GeV mass region and detecting energy depositions too small to create electron-hole pairs, phonon detection will play an increasingly important role. Phonon detection using transition-edge sensors (TESs), a thermal detector, has achieved baseline phonon resolutions as low as 2.65(2) eV in gram-scale targets and is on a trajectory to reach...
Future mm-wave cosmological surveys need mega-detector focal planes to confirm or rule out defining theories for the missing cornerstones of modern cosmology. Microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) can straightforwardly scale to large-format detector arrays, including photometer arrays and on-chip filter-bank spectrometers. This talk will present a suite of optimization efforts toward...
