Full-Stokes polarimetric measurements and imaging using a fractal superconducting nanowire single-photon detector

• DOI: 10.1364/optica.451737
• Publication Date: 2022-03-09T14:30:10Z
• Authors: Nan Hu; Yun Meng; Kai Zou; Yifan Feng; Zifan Hao; Stephan Steinhauer; Samuel Gyger; Val Zwiller; Xiaolong Hu
• Keywords: Stokes parameters

Measuring the states of polarization (SoP) light is fundamentally important for applications ranging from communication, sensing, spectroscopy, imaging, to navigation. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are ideal choice faint-light detection and measurements, but SNSPDs themselves cannot resolve SoP photons. Here, based on a fractal SNSPD, we demonstrate full-Stokes polarimetric measurement system that can measure arbitrary faint light. The measured SoPs in excellent agreement with those state-of-the-art commercial polarimeter, sensitivity our reaches <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>86.6</mml:mn> <mml:mspace width="thickmathspace"/> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">d</mml:mi> mathvariant="normal">B</mml:mi> mathvariant="normal">m</mml:mi> </mml:math> , which 26.6 dB better than counterpart. As direct application, further remote imaging (i.e., LiDAR) complete set contrast.