High-performance electronic cooling with superconducting tunnel junctions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the optimization of high-power electronic cooling devices using superconducting tunnel junctions, achieving nanoWatt cooling power through device design improvements.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive study on enhancing cooling power in superconducting tunnel junctions by employing a quasi-particle drain and tuning tunnel barriers, surpassing previous picoWatt limitations.

Findings

Cooling power up to nanoWatts achieved

Optimization techniques improve device performance

Design strategies enable scalable cooling solutions

Abstract

When biased at a voltage just below a superconductor's energy gap, a tunnel junction between this superconductor and a normal metal cools the latter. While the study of such devices has long been focussed to structures of submicron size and consequently cooling power in the picoWatt range, we have led a thorough study of devices with a large cooling power up to the nanoWatt range. Here we describe how their performance can be optimized by using a quasi-particle drain and tuning the cooling junctions' tunnel barrier.