Ferromagnetic insulator-based superconducting junctions as sensitive electron thermometers

Abstract

We present an exhaustive theoretical analysis of charge and thermoelectric transport in a normal metal-ferromagnetic insulator-superconductor (NFIS) junction, and explore the possibility of its use as a sensitive thermometer. We investigated the transfer functions and the intrinsic noise performance for different measurement configurations. A common feature of all configurations is that the best temperature noise performance is obtained in the non-linear temperature regime for a structure based on an europium chalcogenide ferromagnetic insulator in contact with a superconducting Al film structure. For an open-circuit configuration, although the maximal intrinsic temperature sensitivity can achieve $10$nKHz$^{-1/2}$, a realistic amplifying chain will reduce the sensitivity up to $10$$\mu$KHz$^{-1/2}$. To overcome this limitation we propose a measurement scheme in a closed-circuit configuration based on state-of-art SQUID detection technology in an inductive setup. In such a case we show that temperature noise can be as low as $35$nKHz$^{-1/2}$. We also discuss a temperature-to-frequency converter where the obtained thermo-voltage developed over a Josephson junction operated in the dissipative regime is converted into a high-frequency signal. We predict that the structure can generate frequencies up to $\sim 120$GHz, and transfer functions up to $200$GHz/K at around $\sim 1$K. If operated as electron thermometer, the device may provide temperature noise lower than $35$nKHz$^{-1/2}$ thereby being potentially attractive for radiation sensing applications.