Tunable Up-Conversion Photon Detector

We introduce a simple approach for a tunable up-conversion detector. This scheme is relevant for both single photon detection or anywhere where low light levels at telecom wavelengths need to be detected with a high degree of temporal resolution or where high count rates are desired. A system combining a periodically poled Lithium niobate waveguide for the nonlinear wavelength conversion and a low jitter Silicon avalanche photodiode are used in conjunction with a tunable pump source. We report more than a ten-fold increase in the detectable bandwidth using this tuning scheme.