Search results for "Tunnel junction"
showing 5 items of 75 documents
Applications of tunnel junctions in low-dimensional nanostructures
2009
This thesis concentrates on studies of AlOx based tunnel junctions and their feasibility for cooling, thermometry and strain sensing in suspended nanostructures. The main result of the thesis is cooling of one dimensional phonon modes of a suspended nanowire with normal metal insulator superconductor (NIS) tunnel junctions. Simultaneous cooling of both electrons and phonons was achieved, and the lowest phonon temperature reached in the system was 42 mK with an initial temperature of 100 mK. In addition, suspended devices show cooling still at a bath temperature of 600 mK. The observed thermal transport characteristics show, that the heat flow is limited by the scattering of phonons at the b…
Applications and non-idealities of submicron Al–AlOx–Nb tunnel junctions
2016
We have developed a technique to fabricate sub-micron, 0.6µm×0.6µm Al-AlOx-Nb tunnel junctions using a standard e-beam resist, angle evaporation and double oxidation of the tunneling barrier, resulting in high quality niobium, as determined by the the high measured values of the critical temperature TC ∼ 7.5 K and the gap ∆ ∼ 1.3 meV. The devices show great promise for local nanoscale thermometry in the temperature range 1 - 7.5 K. Electrical characterization of the junctions was performed at sub-Kelvin temperatures both with and without an external magnetic field, which was used to suppress superconductivity in Al and thus bring the junction into a normal-metal-insulator-superconductor (NI…
Development of an inductive NIS thermometer
2012
Normal metal-Insulator-Superconductor (NIS) tunnel junction thermometers have been under heavy research since 1976 after Rowell and Tsui first presented thanks to their excellent sensitivity to the temperature change in millikelvin regime. In this work, we have designed and studied an inductive readout for NIS tunnel junctions by using on-chip planar inductors and a DC SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) to develop a sensitive and fast thermometer for studies of nanoscale heat conduction and bolometry. In this thesis, the processing of the samples fabricated in Nanoscience Center in Jyväskylä are presented, and several processing challenges have been dealt with and the fabri…