Electronic cooling of a submicron-sized metallic beam

Muhonen, J. T.; Niskanen, A. O.; Meschke, M.; Pashkin, Yu. A.; Tsai, J. S.; Sainiemi, L.; Franssila, S.; Pekola, J. P.

Electronic cooling of a submicron-sized metallic beam

Authors

Description

We demonstrate electronic cooling of a suspended AuPd island using superconductor-insulator-normal metal tunnel junctions. This was achieved by developing a simple fabrication method for reliably releasing narrow submicron sized metal beams. The process is based on reactive ion etching and uses a conducting substrate to avoid charge-up damage and is compatible with e.g. conventional e-beam lithography, shadow-angle metal deposition and oxide tunnel junctions. The devices function well and exhibit clear cooling; up to factor of two at sub-kelvin temperatures.
4 pages, 3 figures