Physical Modeling of Hot-Electron Superconducting Single-Photon Detectors

In this paper, we treat the incident photons as an electromagnetic plane wave and simulate the wave power coupling to the the hot-electron superconducting single-photon detector to investigate its connection with the experimental system quantum efficiency over different wavelengths. Then we propose a lumped equivalent circuit model based on the kinetic inductance variation induced by the incident photon stream when the serpentine superconducting thin-film nano-wire is dc-biased close to its critical current. The computed output voltage matches experimental results for both amplitude and frequency.