Related papers: Electronic coolers based on superconducting tunnel…
This PhD thesis is divided in 6 chapters. In chapter 1 we introduce basic superconducting phenomena. Such as, the BCS theory, the Andreev reflection and the proximity effect, and the charge current transport in superconducting tunnel…
We investigate theoretically the simultaneous tunneling of two electrons from a superconductor into a normal metal at low temperatures and voltages. Such an emission process is shown to be equivalent to the Andreev reflection of an incident…
We propose a phenomenological description of electronic transport through a normal metal/superconductor interface of arbitrary transparency, which accounts for the presence of electron-electron interaction in the normal metal. The effect of…
We develop a theoretical proposal for the charge Kondo effect in mesoscopic normal-superconductor-normal heterostructures, where the superconducting gap exceeds the electrostatic charging energy. Charge-Kondo correlations in these devices…
Advances in scanning tunneling spectroscopy reveal the presence of superconducting nanoregions well past the bulk thermal transition in strongly disordered superconductors. We use a Monte Carlo tool to capture the spatially differentiated…
In this work, we investigate the thermoelectric properties of a hybrid junction realised coupling surface states of a three-dimensional topological insulator with a conventional $s$-wave superconductor. We focus on the ballistic devices and…
Semiconductor nanostructures hold great promise for high-efficiency waste heat recovery exploiting thermoelectric energy conversion, a technological breakthrough that could significantly contribute to providing environmentally friendly…
Thermoelectric effects result from the coupling of charge and heat transport, and can be used for thermometry, cooling and harvesting of thermal energy. The microscopic origin of thermoelectric effects is a broken electron-hole symmetry,…
In this paper, a brief review of the history of topological insulators is given. After that,electronic transport experiments in topological insulator-superconductor hybrid structures, including experimental methods, physical properties and…
Phase-coherent diffusive transport through mesoscopic hybrid superconductor/normal metal tunneling structures is investigated. For a N-s-S two-barrier tunneling system with bulk S and N electrodes coupled by a mesoscopic superconducting…
At low temperatures, the transport through a superconducting-normal tunnel interface is due to tunneling of electrons in pairs. The probability for this process is shown to depend on the layout of the electrodes near the tunnel junction,…
A nanoelectromechanical weak link composed of a carbon nanotube suspended between two normal electrodes in a gap between two superconducting leads is considered. The nanotube is treated as a movable single-level quantum dot in which the…
Electronic cooling in hybrid normal metal-insulator-superconductor junctions is a promising technology for the manipulation of thermal loads in solid state nanosystems. One of the main bottlenecks for efficient electronic cooling is the…
In this work, we review and expand recent theoretical proposals for the realization of electronic thermal diodes based on tunnel-junctions of normal metal and superconducting thin films. Starting from the basic rectifying properties of a…
We study thermoelectric effects in superconducting nanobridges and demonstrate that the magnitude of these effects can be comparable or even larger than that for a macroscopic superconducting circuit. The reason is related to a possibility…
We develop a microscopic theory of single-electron transport in N-S-N hybrid structures in the presence of applied magnetic field introducing vortex lines in a superconductor layer. We show that vortex cores in a thick and clean…
The properties of nanoscopic superconducting structures fabricated with a scanning tunnelling microscope are reviewed, with emphasis on the effects of high magnetic fields. These systems include the smallest superconducting junctions which…
We discuss inherent thermometry in a Superconductor - Normal metal - Superconductor tunnel junction. In this configuration, the energy selectivity of single-particle tunneling can provide a significant electron cooling, depending on the…
Several models of thermionic energy nanoconverters have been proposed to study the transport phenomena that take place in electronic devices. For example, in resonant tunneling junctions those phenomena are manifested through the…
We investigate transport through hybrid structures consisting of two normal metal leads connected via tunnel barriers to one common superconducting electrode. We find clear evidence for the occurrence of non-local Andreev reflection and…