This two-year, $297,189 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Materials Research aims to develop new approaches for ultra-low temperature refrigeration without reliance on rare helium isotopes. Specifically, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will investigate using electrically-tunable spin-orbit interactions in Rashba materials to achieve refrigeration through adiabatic electrification, with a goal of reaching temperatures as low as 0.01 K. If successful, this new thermodynamic cycle approach could enable widespread adoption of quantum technologies by establishing an alternative to dilution refrigerators. More broadly, overcoming current temperature limitations could make a wide range of low-temperature phenomena more accessible for both scientific inquiry and technological applications such as superconductors. This award falls under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049), which supports advancing scientific knowledge and understanding of major problems through basic research in these fields.
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