Single-photon detectors are ubiquitous in quantum information science and quantum sensing. They are key enabling technologies for numerous scientific discoveries and fundamental tests of quantum optics. Photon-number-revolving detectors are the ultimate measurement tool of light. However, few detectors to date can provide high-fidelity photon number resolution at few-photon levels. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip detector that can resolve up to 100 photons by spatiotemporally multiplexing an array of superconducting nanowires along a single waveguide. The unparalleled photon number resolution paired with the high-speed response exclusively allows us to unveil the quantum photon statistics of a true thermal light source for the first time, which is realized by direct measurement of high-order correlation function g^(N) with N up to 15, observation of photon-subtraction-induced photon number enhancement, and quantum-limited state discrimination against a coherent light source. Our detector provides a viable route towards various important applications, including photonic quantum computation and quantum metrology.
@article{arxiv.2206.13753,
title = {Unveiling photon statistics with a 100-pixel photon-number-resolving detector},
author = {Risheng Cheng and Yiyu Zhou and Sihao Wang and Mohan Shen and Towsif Taher and Hong X. Tang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2206.13753},
year = {2022}
}