Spatially-dependent sensitivity of superconducting meanders as single-photon detectors

Abstract: The photo-response of a thin current-carrying superconducting stripe with a 90-degree turn is studied within the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory. We show that the photon acting near the inner corner (where the current density is maximal due to the current crowding [J. R. Clem and K. K. Berggren, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 84}, 174510 (2011)]) triggers the nucleation of superconducting vortices at currents much smaller than the expected critical one, but {\it does not} bring the system to a higher resistive state and thus remains undetected. The transition to the resistive state occurs only when the photon hits the stripe away from the corner due to there uniform current distribution across the sample, and dissipation is due to the nucleation of a kinematic vortex-antivortex pair near the photon incidence. We propose strategies to account for this problem in the measurements.