Quantum Key Distribution High-Rate Detector Pre-development (4S SAGA)

Responsible:
Collaboration with Academic Institutions and Research Centres
DEIB Role: Coordinator
Start date: 2023-03-01
Length: 24 months
Project abstract
The Quantum Key Distribution High-Rate Detector Pre-Development project, carried out in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) has the following objectives:
- Developing a ground-based single-photon receiver prototype with a high photon rate and high quantum efficiency in the 800 nm spectral band and its associated QKD (Quantum Key Distribution) detection systems to significantly increase the QKD secret key rate.
- Manufacturing and testing of the single-photon receiver demonstrator with a QKD system demonstrating the QKD key rate benefit by teaming-up (if it’s required) with a laboratory with an appropriate measurement set-up.
In detail, the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering - Politecnico di Milano will design, fabricate and test a novel high-rate single photon detector integrated circuit. The single-photon detector will be a SPAD (single-photon avalanche diode) array and it is planned to be developed in a 3D stacked CMOS technology, combining a scaled logic tier, an imaging optimized SPAD tier and a third tier consisting of microlenses. As an alternative and more conservative approach, a planar CMOS SPAD array will be developed in parallel, where both the detectors and the electronics are in the same layer, with the disadvantage of lower collection efficiency.