Quasiparticle cooling of a single-Cooper-pair-transistor

A superconducting tunnel junction is used to directly extract quasiparticles from one of the leads of a single-Cooper-pair-transistor. The consequent reduction in quasiparticle density causes a lower rate of quasiparticle tunneling onto the device. This rate is directly measured by radio-frequency reflectometry. Local cooling may be of direct benefit in reducing the effect of quasiparticles on coherent superconducting nanostructures.