In this presentation, I will describe different devices fabricated at the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology of the National research council in Rome, together with their applications. Special attention will be devoted to electromagnetic radiation detectors and to the realization and characterization techniques used. The devices range from photonic crystals to bolometers for THZ detection, from single photon detectors based on superconducting nanowires to gyroscopes and MEMS for space applications, from microfluidic circuits for biomedical applications to ZnO nanostructures and plasmonic metamaterials.
The Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology in Rome is equipped with a 200m2 clean room. The clean room is provided with all the thin film equipments needed for the micro and nano fabrication of the different devices. The electron beam lithography system allows the patterning of different resists over large areas without using optical masks, with a resolution of less than 100 nm.
Further details will be given on single photon detectors based on superconducting nanowires. Such devices are able to detect single photons with high temporal resolution (Jitter of the order of 30-40 ps and dead time of the order of 3-10 ns corresponding to a repetition rate of hundreds of MHz up to a maximum of one GHz). The fabrication process and the devices engineerization allow us to integrate those devices in complex optical circuits and to count up to 24 photons in a single bunch of light.