Primary electronic thermometry using the shot noise of a tunnel junction.
We present a thermometer based on the electrical noise from a tunnel junction. In this thermometer, temperature is related to the voltage across the junction by a relative noise measurement with only the use of the electron charge, Boltzmann's constant, and assumption that electrons in a metal obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. We demonstrate proof-of-concept operation of this primary thermometer over four orders of magnitude in temperature, with as high as 0.1% accuracy and 0.02% precision in the range near 1 kelvin. The self-calibrating nature of this sensor allows for a much faster and simpler measurement than traditional Johnson noise thermometry, making it potentially attractive for metrology and for general use in cryogenic systems.
Spietz
Lafe
L
Department of Applied Physics, Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA. lafe.spietz@yale.edu
Lehnert
K W
KW
Siddiqi
I
I
Schoelkopf
R J
RJ