Efficient electronic cooling in heavily doped silicon by quasiparticle tunneling

Cooling of electrons in a heavily doped silicon by quasiparticle tunneling using a superconductor-semiconductor-superconductor double-Schottky-junction structure is demonstrated at low temperatures. In this work, we use Al as the superconductor and thin silicon-on-insulator (SOI) film as the semiconductor. The electron-phonon coupling is measured for the SOI film and the low value of the coupling is shown to be the origin of the observed significant cooling effect. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.