Faint light spectroscopy has plenty significant applications such as fluorescence spectroscopy, lidar, and astronomical observations. However, the long detection time is required by the conventional method, limiting its application in scenarios of real-time measurement. Cooperated with Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), we proposed a photon counting reconstructive spectrometer combining metasurfaces and superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs). A prototype device was fabricated on a silicon-on-isolator substrate and its performance was characterized. The experiment results show that it supports spectral reconstruction of mono-color lights with a resolution of 2 nm in the wavelength region of 1500–1600 nm. Its detection efficiency is 1.4%–3.2% in this wavelength region. The measurement time required by the photon counting reconstructive spectrometer was also investigated experimentally, showing its potential to be applied in scenarios requiring real-time measurement.

This work has published on Photonics Research (Vol. 11, Issue 2, pp. 234-244; https://opg.optica.org/prj/fulltext.cfm?uri=prj-11-2-234&id=525713; DOI: 10.1364/PRJ.469221) at 1st Feb. 2023. The co-first author of this paper are Ph.D. candidate Jingyuan Zheng and Ph.D. candidate You Xiao from SIMIT. The corresponding author of this paper is Prof. Wei Zhang.