nanoscanCBT

New technological platforms based on novel quantum materials focus on the development of nanoscale devices exploiting information-carrying transport phenomena beyond the ohmic charge transport that is at the heart of our everyday electronics. These include, for example, edge states of topological phases, hydrodynamic regimes in ultraclean graphene or transition metal oxides, and spin currents in spintronics.

One of the key questions in such devices is where and how does dissipation occur? Dissipation that is heat generating, or in other words entropy generating, is ultimately underlying the loss of information and therefore limiting device functionality in many cases. Due to the unconventional non-ohmic nature of transport in many of these systems our traditional intuitions of what the primary drivers of dissipation are and where dissipation occurs no longer hold. The nanoscale-resolved experimental identification of the key heat sources in mesoscopic structures is at the centre of this proposal. In this project we will develop a non-invasive local thermometer probe based on the ideas of Coulomb blockade thermometry and perform the first proof-of-principle measurements with the setup.

Developing the capability for such experiments has the potential for being a step change for truly transformational and unique insights into the microscopic mechanism by which dissipation and ultimately decoherence occur in these varied classes of quantum materials.