Superconducting platinum silicide for electron cooling in silicon

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates electron cooling in silicon using a thin film of platinum silicide as a superconductor contact, effectively reducing electron temperatures from 100 mK to 50 mK, with potential applications in low-temperature electronics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel use of platinum silicide thin films for electron cooling in silicon, achieving lower temperature operation than bulk materials.

Findings

Cooling from 100 mK to 50 mK achieved

Superconducting critical temperature reduced to 0.79 K

Enhanced cooling performance at lower temperatures

Abstract

We demonstrate electron cooling in silicon using platinum silicide as a superconductor contact to selectively remove the highest energy electrons. The superconducting critical temperature of bulk PtSi is reduced from around 1 K to 0.79 K using a thin film (10 nm) of PtSi, which enhances cooling performance at lower temperatures and enables electron cooling to be demonstrated from 100 mK to 50 mK.