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Experimental investigation of the detection mechanism in WSi nanowire superconducting single photon detectors

We use quantum detector tomography to investigate the detection mechanism in WSi nanowire superconducting single photon detectors (SSPDs). To this purpose, we fabricated a 250nm wide and 250nm long WSi nanowire and measured its response to impinging photons with wavelengths ranging from $λ$ = 900 nm to $λ$ = 1650 nm. Tomographic measurements show that the detector response depends on the total excitation energy only. Moreover, for energies Et > 0.8eV the current energy relation is linear, similar to what was observed in NbN nanowires, whereas the current-energy relation deviates from linear behaviour for total energies below 0.8eV.