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Practical electron-tunneling refrigerator

Published

Author(s)

Anna Clark, Anthony Williams, Steve Ruggiero, Marcel L. van den Berg, Joel N. Ullom

Abstract

We demonstrate a thin-film, solid-state refrigerator based on the removal of hot electrons from a metal by quantum-mechanical tunneling. We have halved the electronic temperature in a macroscopic film from 260 mK to near 130 mK. Both the cooling power and temperature reduction of this refrigerator are well matched to cooling thin-film photon sensors. This advance was made possible by a new device design that removes the work of refrigeration more efficiently than previous efforts. Our refrigerator may make high-performance cryogenic sensors more accessible to the astronomical and analytical communities.
Citation
Science
Volume
84
Issue
4

Keywords

tunneling, NIS junction, quantum refrigerator

Citation

Clark, A. , Williams, A. , Ruggiero, S. , van, M. and Ullom, J. (2004), Practical electron-tunneling refrigerator, Science, [online], https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1644326 (Accessed October 9, 2025)

Issues

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Created January 21, 2004, Updated November 10, 2018
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