As described in "High-efficiency superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors fabricated from MoSi thin-films," which appears in Optics Express, NIST researchers used electron beam to pattern nanowires into thin film made of heat-tolerant ceramic superconductor (molybdenum silicide). Researchers demonstrated detector efficiencies of 87% at wavelengths useful in telecommunications. This is almost as efficient as tungsten-silicon devices (93%) but with lower jitter.