Coulomb blockade thermometry beyond the universal regime

Abstract

The charge localization of single electrons on mesoscopic metallic islands leads to a suppression of the electrical current, known as the Coulomb blockade. When this correction is small, it enables primary electron thermometry, as it was first demonstrated by Pekola et al. (Phys. Rev. Letters, 73, 2903). However, in the low temperature limit, random charge offsets influence the conductance and limit the universal behavior of a single metallic island. In this work, we numerically investigate the conductance of a junction array, and demonstrate the extension of the primary regime for large arrays, even when the variations in the device parameters are taken into account. We find that our simulations agree well with measured conductance traces in the submillikelvin electron temperature regime.