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Low-Temperature Thermally Induced Noise in the Presence of an AC Voltage Bias

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Abstract

As microelectronics evolve into nanoelectronics with faster switching speeds and the associated energy dissipation, determining local temperature and temperature gradients becomes an increasingly important challenge for solving design and manufacturing problems as well as improving reliability. Recently, experimental studies of low-temperature quantum thermal phenomena, in which heat is ruled by quantum physics, have been developing at an ever-increasing pace. A fundamental issue posed by finite temperatures is spontaneous fluctuations of electric currents occurring inside electrical conductors even in equilibrium, regardless of any applied voltage (the Johnson-Nyquist noise). A new (previously overlooked) out-of-equilibrium contribution to noise in a temperature-biased nanoscale conductive structure was discovered and called delta-T noise. In this paper, we argue that, along with stationary characteristics, both techniques can be successfully used to reveal periodic (AC) voltage fluctuations or increase the sensitivity of the temperature monitoring in a cryogenic environment when other thermodynamic approaches lose sensitivity or cease to operate. Our calculations based on the scattering theory of nonlinear AC quantum transport show that related zero-frequency as well as frequency-dependent noise spectra reflect the amplitude and the frequency of periodic AC fluctuations. Such probing, which is most effective at ultra-low temperatures, can provide important for nanoelectronics and sensing technologies information about local thermally induced dynamics.

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Funding

This work was partly supported by the German-Ukrainian collaborative project “Controllable quantum-information transfer in superconducting networks” (DFG project SE 664/21–1, No. 405579680). M.B. is grateful for the financial support from Volkswagen Stiftung under the grant 9B884 “Novel quantum platforms for cryogenic sensing and stochastic computing.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Donetsk Institute for Physics and Engineering named after O.O. Galkin, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Nauki Ave. 46, Kyiv, 03028, Ukraine

    Elena Zhitlukhina

  2. Kyiv Academic University, Academician Vernadsky Blvd. 36, Kyiv, 03142, Ukraine

    Mikhail Belogolovskii

  3. Institut Für Festkörperphysik, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Helmholtzweg 5, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Mikhail Belogolovskii & Paul Seidel

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  1. Elena Zhitlukhina
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  2. Mikhail Belogolovskii
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  3. Paul Seidel
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The authors contributed equally to the work.

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Correspondence to Elena Zhitlukhina.

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Zhitlukhina, E., Belogolovskii, M. & Seidel, P. Low-Temperature Thermally Induced Noise in the Presence of an AC Voltage Bias. J Low Temp Phys 212, 79–88 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-023-02975-1

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