Electronic device having thermally managed electron path and method of thermal management of very cold electrons
View Patent ↗A device and a method of thermal management. In one embodiment, the device includes an integrated circuit, including: (1) a conductive region configured to be connected to a voltage source, (2) a transistor having a semiconductor channel with a controllable conductivity and (3) first and second conducting leads connecting to respective first and second ends of said channel, wherein a charge in the conductive region is configured to substantially raise an electrical potential energy of conduction charge carriers in the semiconductor channel and portions of said leads are located where an electric field produced by said charge is substantially weaker than near the semiconductor channel.
1. A method, comprising:
operating an electronic device, including:
storing a charge in a conductive region to substantially raise a potential energy of conduction charge carriers in a semiconductor channel of a transistor, the channel being located near the conductive region, the stored charge causing a density of the conduction charge carriers to be substantially lowered in the channel with respect to the density of said carriers therein in the absence of said stored charge,
wherein the channel includes a first tunnel junction capable of passing the conduction charge carriers from a first conducting lead to a quantum island and a second tunnel junction capable of passing the conduction charge carriers from the quantum island to a second conducting lead.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising using the electronic device to measure a temperature or to detect an intensity of microwaves.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the semiconductor channel and conductive region are located in an integrated circuit of the electronic device.
4. The method of claim 1 , further including driving a current of said carriers through said channel to substantially cool a region nearby said transistor.
5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising cooling said transistor to below 150° Kelvin with a cooling system that does not use a cryogenic fluid while driving said current.
6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising cooling said transistor with said cooling system to a temperature of less than 0.3° Kelvin while driving said current.
7. The method of claim 5 , wherein said driven current further reduces an absolute temperature of a region nearby the transistor by at least 10 percent with respect to a lowest temperature to which the cooling system can cool the region nearby the transistor in the absence of the current.
8. The method of claim 5 , wherein said driven current further cools a region nearby the transistor to an absolute temperature at least 5 percent lower than a temperature produced by the cooling the transistor with the cooling system.
9. The method of claim 5 , wherein said driven current cools conduction charge carriers in the semiconductor channel to a temperature substantially lower than a temperature of a lattice of the semiconductor of the channel.