Correlation-induced refrigeration with superconducting single-electron transistors

Abstract

A model of a superconducting tunnel junction which refrigerates a nearby metallic island without any particle exchange is presented. Heat extraction is mediated by charge fluctuations in the coupling capacitance of the two systems. The interplay of Coulomb interaction and the superconducting gap reduces the power consumption of the refrigerator. The island is predicted to be cooled from lattice temperatures of 200~mK down to close to 50~mK, for realistic parameters. The results emphasize the role of non-equilibrium correlations in bipartite mesoscopic conductors. This mechanism can be applied to create local temperature gradients in tunnel junction arrays or explore the role of interactions in the thermalization of non-equilibrium systems.