I am doing a PhD in experimental nanophysics. My supervisor is professor Ilari Maasilta.
I study electron cooling of tunnel junctions and microscopic properties of their tunnel barriers. I have improved the well-known Simmons model which has been widely used since the 1960s to estimate thicknesses and heights of tunnel junction barriers from simple electrical data.
In physics, a tunnel junction consists of two electrical conductors separated by a thin insulator that is around one nanometer thick. Superconducting tunnel junctions have in recent years been applied
- in quantum computers
- in superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs)
- in sensitive radiation detectors
- as on-chip electronic coolers and thermometers
- for the definition of the unit of electric current, ampere
