Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme

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SYUK: Symposium United Kingdom as Guest of Honor

SYUK 2: United Kingdom as Guest of Honor II

SYUK 2.4: Invited Talk

Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 16:45–17:15, H2

Breaking the millikelvin barrier in cooling nanoelectronic devices — •Richard Haley — Physics Department, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YB, UK

Over the last several years a number of groups across Europe have been developing techniques to cool the electrons in nano-fabricated devices to sub-mK temperatures. Cooling device electrons into the microkelvin regime, below the canonical limit of around 10 millikelvin, enhances sensitivity for observing known and new physical phenomena, and improves the performance of quantum technologies, sensors and metrological standards.

There are two main challenges. First, one must provide a technique which will deliver electron temperatures colder than a dilution refrigerator and which is relatively easy to implement. Currently the microkelvin regime is really only accessible in specially dedicated labs. Second, one must understand the thermal links between the microkelvin cooling platform and the electrons in the device of interest, bearing in mind that nanoscale systems are typically also more susceptible to nuisance heating than bulk materials. Progress has been made with three methods and combinations thereof: immersion cooling in liquid helium; demagnetisation cooling of electrical leads and contacts; and the demagnetisation of material deposited directly onto device chips.

Here we review the current state-of-the-art in cooling nanoelectronic devices, and ways to make the techniques easier to adapt and adopt.