Photon Avalanche: How to Catch the Invisible express

Original: "Amplification and Detection of Single Itinerant Microwave Photons"
arXiv:2510.08030 · 2025-10-09 · CC BY 4.0 · 1 min
A single microwave photon multiplies into dozens, making it detectable.

In photometry (the measurement of light), catching individual microwave photons was long impossible: their energy is on par with the thermal jitter of atoms. The breakthrough came from superconductors: a single photon sets off an avalanche, like a snowball rolling downhill gathers more snow, a microwave quantum gives birth to dozens of its kind. The amplified signal is separated from the background by analyzing quantum entropy — a measure of disorder: a photon avalanche has a distinct entropy compared to random noise. The detector is cooled nearly to absolute zero to suppress thermal interference. Efficiency reaches 84.5% with minimal errors. The paradox: catching particles from the Universe's fiery past requires extreme cold. Such detectors will link quantum computers and, perhaps, allow us to register photons from the echo of the Big Bang, testing the standard model of physics.

The energy of a single microwave photon is roughly 100,000 times less than that of a visible-light photon, yet these are the particles that carry information about the early Universe.

Scientists
Max PlanckAlbert EinsteinLudwig BoltzmannJeff KimbleLeonard MandelRoy Glauber
Concepts
single photon detection silicon photomultiplier photon counting photomultiplier tube superconducting detector quantum detector single pixel imaging photodetector purity particle detection technology quantum photonics integration mach zehnder interferometer photonic integrated circuit matched filter optical microscopy josephson current Digital Image Processing miniaturized spectrometry integrated spectrometer optical microresonator precision