Nanoscale Quantum Calorimetry with Electronic Temperature Fluctuations

TL;DR

This paper proposes a hybrid superconducting calorimeter for detecting individual heat pulses at the nanoscale, enabling precise quantum thermodynamics experiments including microwave photon detection.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic analysis of temperature fluctuations in a superconducting calorimeter for quantum calorimetry, a novel approach for nanoscale heat pulse detection.

Findings

Derived conditions for accurate heat pulse energy measurement.

Analyzed temperature fluctuation statistics microscopically.

Outlined potential for detecting single microwave photons.

Abstract

Motivated by the recent development of fast and ultra-sensitive thermometry in nanoscale systems, we investigate quantum calorimetric detection of individual heat pulses in the sub-meV energy range. We propose a hybrid superconducting injector-calorimeter set-up, with the energy of injected pulses carried by tunneling electrons. Treating all heat transfer events microscopically, we analyse the statistics of the calorimeter temperature fluctuations and derive conditions for an accurate measurement of the heat pulse energies. Our results pave the way for novel, fundamental quantum thermodynamics experiments, including calorimetric detection of single microwave photons.