Photon number measurement using heterodyne method for a detector's quantum efficiency determination based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion

Active development of quantum informational components such as quantum computers and quantum key distribution systems requires parameter characterization of single photon detectors. A key property of the single photon detectors is detection efficiency. One of the methods of the detection efficiency measurement, as listed in the international standard ETSI, is the reference-free twin-photon-based Klyshko method. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of this method depends on the combination of the pump wavelength, the nonlinear crystal's axis angle, and the type of detector's sensitive element. When the combination is difficult, one has to deal with the low SNR of the detector counts measurement. To gain the high SNR, one has to average the long record complicated with the random telegraph signal noise. This type of noise exhibits high spectral density at a zero frequency, where simple averaging works. The heterodyne based method we have proposed is to perform averaging at the higher frequency of the modulation introduced to the standard Klyshko measurement scheme. The method was numerically simulated and experimentally tested. The 14 times improvement in SNR for the proposed method relative to the simple averaging was demonstrated by the numerical simulation and confirmed experimentally. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America