Quantum Opus! Single Photon Detectors!
Updated 1/5/2026
On this page, I'll just include some snapshots from my 6 months at QO.
These are what QO makes, superconducting nanowire single photon detectors! They come in this comprehensive box. One photon in, readable electrical pulse out!
If you're doing quantum experiments, like quantum computing, quantum optics for entanglement, cryptography, random number generation, etc. You need single photon detectors, cause you're treating photons like tennis balls and doing experiments with them. You're not treating them like a beam of light.
Some people shine tiny lasers at people's heads and check what light bounces back out, the single photons which penetrate into their brain and bounce out can determine a persons blood flow in a hospital setting.
Some people (looking at you NASA) want to put a laser on Mars, shoot it at Earth, and establish a fiber optic internet like connection between the planets. The amount of light that would get back to earth would be single photons!
Single photon detectors work at ~2.5 degrees kelvin, so the whole thing is in cryogenics, that creates quite the interesting problems with reading these small signals!
Here's one of the boards I designed! 8 layer, gold-plated, RF capable, high speed digital.
This is my "Cryogenic FPGA" board with RF amplifiers. It will hopefully enable some very cool improvements to our signal chain!