Single photon detector comparison in a quantum key distribution test
Jonathan L. Habif, David Pearson, Robert H. Hadfield, Robert E. Schwall, Sae Woo Nam, Aaron Miller · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2006
We provide a direct comparison between the InGaAs avalanche photodiode (APD) and the NbN superconducting single photon detector (SSPD) for applications in fiber-based quantum cryptography. The quantum efficiency and dark count rate were measured for each detector, and used to calculate the quantum bit error rate (QBER) and shared key rate for a QKD link. The results indicate that, despite low quantum efficiency, the speed of the SSPD makes it a superior detector for quantum information applications. Finally, we present results of an initial integration of an SSPD into a receiver node of the DARPA quantum network to perform quantum key distribution.