Refrigeration of a dielectric membrane by superconductor/insulator/normal-metal/insulator/superconductor tunneling

We have applied tunneling of electrons between a normal metal and a superconductor to refrigerate thin dielectric membrane attached to the normal electrode of a superconductor/insulator/normal-metal/insulator/superconductor (SINIS) structure. Starting from T approximate to 200 mK, a decrease in temperature of several mK was observed, measured by a separate thermometer on the membrane. It should be straightforward to improve the refrigerator performance to the level of the recently demonstrated SINIS electron cooling method, such that the drop in the lattice temperature would be more than an order of magnitude larger. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.