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“In this work, we employed a hybrid single-electron turnstile, a platform used in the past for realizing a standard for the unit of electrical current, to emit electrons one-by-one at a known rate with well-defined energy. This enabled the production of precise, controllable amounts of power. In the newly revised SI, these kinds of demonstrations show that units can be experimentally realized according to their new definitions in terms of physical constants. Now, the challenge resides in showing that higher accuracies can be achieved in more simplified setups.”

In the study, Marín-Suárez and the team used a hybrid single-electron transistor to link a frequency to power. The result is an approach that, under optimal conditions, can have an error rate well below one percent from ideal frequency-to-power conversion. The experimental work paves the way for an alternative, more precise approach to the power standard, which promises to have a range of applications in quantum thermodynamics and detection of superconducting excitations. 

“Me and my coauthors, doctors Joonas Peltonen and Dmitry Golubev as well as Professor Jukka Pekola, knew of the impact of this study. However, we were not expecting such an acknowledgment. This prize is a great boost to my career which I will continue in the industry for the time being, pending, of course, my defense.”

Marín-Suárez is set to defend his doctoral thesis on the topic at Aalto University on July 4.

The QTF Annual Discovery Prize winner was decided by a panel of three distinguished judges: Prof. Erik Aurell of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, prof. Robert Fickler of the University of Tampere and prof. Anasua Chatterjee, the University of Copenhagen. The prize, totaling a thousand euros, was awarded today at the QTF Summer Day event.