Phase-Tunable Temperature Amplifier

Abstract

Coherent caloritronics, the thermal counterpart of coherent electronics, has drawn growing attention since the discovery of heat interference in 2012. Thermal interferometers, diodes, transistors and nano-valves have been theoretically proposed and experimentally demonstrated by exploiting the quantum phase difference between two superconductors coupled through a Josephson junction. So far, the quantum-phase modulator has been realized in the form of a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) or a superconducting quantum interference proximity transistor (SQUIPT). Thence, an external magnetic field is necessary in order to manipulate the heat transport. Here, we theoretically propose the first on-chip fully thermal caloritronic device: the phase-tunable temperature amplifier. Taking advantage of a recent thermoelectric effect discovered in spin-split superconductors coupled to a spin-polarized system, by a temperature gradient we generate the magnetic flux controlling the transport through a temperature biased SQUIPT. By employing commonly used materials and a geometry compatible with state-of-the-art nano-fabrication techniques, we simulate the behavior of the temperature amplifier and define a number of figures of merit in full analogy with voltage amplifiers. Notably, our architecture ensures infinite input thermal impedance, maximum gain of about 11 and efficiency reaching the 95%. This device concept could represent a breakthrough in coherent caloritronic devices, and paves the way for applications in radiation sensing, thermal logics and quantum information.

7 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (7)

• The Josephson heat interferometer
• Nonlocal Thermoelectric Effects and Nonlocal Onsager Relations in a Three-Terminal Proximity-Coupled Superconductor-Ferromagnet Device
• Phase controlled superconducting proximity effect probed by tunneling spectroscopy
• Superconductors as ideal spin sources for spintronics
• Phase-controlled superconducting heat-flux quantum modulator
• Proximity nanovalve with large phase-tunable thermal conductance
• Spectral characteristics of a fully-superconducting SQUIPT

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Towards phase-coherent caloritronics in superconducting circuits
• Thermal, electric and spin transport in superconductor/ferromagnetic-insulator structures
• Phase-Tunable Thermal Logic: Computation with Heat
• Non-linear critical current thermal response of an asymmetric Josephson tunnel junction
• Phase-coherent solitonic Josephson heat oscillator
• Phase-coherent caloritronics with ordinary and topological Josephson junctions
• Superconductor-ferromagnet hybrids for non-reciprocal electronics and detectors
• Thermal superconducting quantum interference proximity transistor
• Solitonic thermal transport in a current biased long Josephson junction
• Quasiparticle entropy in superconductor/normal metal/superconductor proximity junctions in the diffusive limit
• Thermodynamics in topological Josephson junctions
• Four-terminal graphene-superconductor thermal switch controlled by the superconducting phase difference
• Extremely weak sub-kelvin electron-phonon coupling in InAs On Insulator
• Phase-dependent transport in thermally-driven superconducting single-electron transistors
• Active electron cooling of graphene
• Out-of-equilibrium nonlinear model of thermoelectricity in superconducting tunnel junctions
• Photonic heat amplifiers based on a disordered semiconductor