Nonequilibrium effects in superconductor-normal metal systems

T. Heikkilä

Collaborators: Frank Hekking, Francesco Giazotto, Fabio Taddei, Rosario Fazio and Fabio Beltram

We study theoretically the nonequilibrium dynamics of superconductor-insulator-normal-metal-insulator-superconductor (SINIS) systems. Such devices can be used as efficient Peltier coolers. In our work, we study the ultimate limits of such cooling and the nonequilibrium electron energy distributions in these systems, including the role of energy relaxation quantitatively. Moreover, we study a system which combines a SINIS cooler with a superconductor-normal-metal-superconductor Josephson weak link and show, in different limits of parameters, how such a system can be used as an accurately tunable supercurrent transistor.