Plasmonic superconducting nanowire single photon detector

A theoretical analysis to enhance the quantum efficiency of a meander-line superconducting single photon detector without increasing the length or thickness of the active element is proposed. The general idea is to utilize the plasmonic nature of a superconducting layer to increase the surface absorption of the input optical signal. To satisfy both optical guiding and photon detection considerations of the design, a coefficient is introduced as a measure to maintain the device sensitivity while crossing over from the current crowding to vortex-based detection mechanisms.