Direct temporal measurement of hot-electron relaxation in a phonon-cooled metal island

We report temporal measurements of the electronic temperature and the electron-phonon thermal relaxation rate in a micron-scale metal island, with a heat capacity of order 1 fJ/K . We employed a superconductor-insulator-normal metal tunnel junction, embedded in a radio-frequency resonator, as a fast (~ 20 MHz) thermometer. A resistive heater coupled to the island allowed us to drive the electronic temperature well above the phonon temperature. Using this device, we have directly measured the thermal relaxation of the hot electron population, with a measured rate consistent with the theory for dynamic electron-phonon cooling.