Landau cooling in metal–semiconductor nanostructures

An electron-cooling principle based on Landau quantization is proposed for nanoscale conductor systems. Operation relies on energy-selective electron tunnelling into a two-dimensional electron gas in quantizing magnetic fields. This quantum refrigerator provides significant cooling power (∼10−9 W at a few kelvin for realistic parameters) and offers a unique flexibility thanks to its tunability via the magnetic-field intensity. The available performance is only marginally affected by nonidealities such as disorder or imperfections in the semiconductor. Methods for the implementation of this system and its characterization are discussed.