Electronic microrefrigerator based on a normal-insulator-superconductor tunnel junction

Abstract

We present measurements on a novel electronic microrefrigerator that can cool conduction electrons significantly below the lattice temperature. A normal-insulator-superconductor tunnel junction is used to extract electrons from the normal metal electrode whose energy is higher than the Fermi energy. Electrons with an average energy equal to the Fermi energy are returned to the metal by a superconducting contact. Consequently, the high-energy thermal excitations are removed from the normal metal, thus cooling the electrons. For lattice temperatures higher than 100 mK the data can be explained by a simple theory incorporating the BCS density of states in the superconducting electrode and the coupling between electrons and phonons. At lower temperatures our measurement suggests that the electron energies in the normal electrode depart strongly from an equilibrium distribution.