  We study the back-action of a single photon detector on the electromagnetic
field upon a photodetection by considering a microscopic model in which the
detector is constituted of a sensor and an amplification mechanism. Using the
quantum trajectories approach we determine the Quantum Jump Superoperator (QJS)
that describes the action of the detector on the field state immediately after
the photocount. The resulting QJS consists of two parts: the bright counts
term, representing the real photoabsorptions, and the dark counts term,
representing the amplification of intrinsic excitations inside the detector.
First we compare our results for the counting rates to experimental data,
showing a good agreement. Then we point out that by modifying the field
frequency one can engineer the form of QJS, obtaining the QJS's proposed
previously in an ad hoc manner.
