Inherent thermometry in a hybrid superconducting tunnel junction

Abstract

We discuss inherent thermometry in a Superconductor - Normal metal - Superconductor tunnel junction. In this configuration, the energy selectivity of single-particle tunneling can provide a significant electron cooling, depending on the bias voltage. The usual approach for measuring the electron temperature consists in using an additional pair of superconducting tunnel junctions as probes. In this paper, we discuss our experiment performed on a different design with no such thermometer. The quasi-equilibrium in the central metallic island is discussed in terms of a kinetic equation including injection and relaxation terms. We determine the electron temperature by comparing the micro-cooler experimental current-voltage characteristic with isothermal theoretical predictions. The limits of validity of this approach, due to the junctions asymmetry, the Andreev reflection or the presence of sub-gap states are discussed.

References in corpus (7)

• Dephasing of Electrons in Mesoscopic Metal Wires
• Subgap Conductivity of a Superconducting-Normal Tunnel Interface
• Limitations in cooling electrons by normal metal - superconductor tunnel junctions
• Andreev Current-Induced Dissipation in a Hybrid Superconducting Tunnel Junction
• Electron and phonon Cooling in a Superconductor - Normal Metal - Superconductor Tunnel Junction
• Long-range coherence and mesoscopic transport in N-S metallic structures
• Local thermometry technique based on proximity-coupled superconductor/normal-metal/superconductor devices

Cited by in corpus (6)

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• Tunnel-Junction Thermometry Down to Millikelvin Temperatures
• Electronic coolers based on superconducting tunnel junctions: fundamentals and applications
• Electrical and thermal transport through $\alpha -T_3$ NIS junction
• Competition between electronic cooling and Andreev dissipation in a superconducting micro-cooler
• Spin-polarized quasiparticle control in a double spin-filter tunnel junction