PHOTOQUANT aims at exploiting the potential of the emerging field of nano-photonics for developing a new generation of highly efficient and ultrafast single-photon quantum sensors.

The project proposes two different approaches: the first will exploit the ability of nanometallic structures to concentrate light into subwavelength volumes, designing an interface layer between the light source and the silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM) to guide all the photons to an individual single photon avalanche diode (SPAD). This will allow solving the problem of efficiency losses due to the SPAD fill-factor in standard SiPM readout configurations.

The second will be to optimise a design of hyperbolic metamaterial photoconversion region in the SiPM structure, to improve the quantum efficiency and reduce the time jitter through a precise localisation of the photoconversion process in the SiPM. This innovative device could have close to 100% photo- detection efficiency, ultra-high cell density, negligible correlated noise and beyond state of the art primary noise.