Available as a 1000x1500 JPEG

Single photon detector based on a passively quenched silicon avalanche photodiode

This single photon detector was one of the several identical units built in Prof. Kulik’s lab at the Moscow State University after the design by Christian Kurtsiefer. A saturation behavior of this detector was tested in an experiment done by Vadim Makarov. As the experiment showed, the saturation behavior of the single photon detector can be used to stage a successful attack on a quantum cryptosystem that uses two or more such detectors.

This picture from Full eavesdropping on quantum cryptography gallery and Quantum hacking lab gallery is included in the paper “Exploiting saturation mode of passively-quenched APD to attack quantum cryptosystems” as well as in Picture Collection (ref. nr. a256-29) on Photo Pages

Taken on February 17, 2007.
Fujichrome Sensia II 100 film, Canon EOS-3, EF 75-300 1:4-5.6 II lens at 240mm, 80A filter, incandescent lighting (a single light bulb above plus an improvised reflector below the detector), f/36 11sec, =DOF, tripod. Scanned on Nikon LS-2000 scanner.

How you can use this image. ©2007 Vadim Makarov