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We observed room-temperature intersubband transitions at 1.26 microns in n-doped type-II In$_{0.3}$Ga$_{0.7}$As/AlAs strained quantum wells. An improved tight-binding model was used to optimize the structure parameters in order to obtain the shortest wavelength intersubband transition ever achieved in a semiconductor system. The corresponding transitions occur between the first confined electronic levels of the well following mid-infrared optical pumping of electrons from the barrier X-valley into the well ground state., To appear in Applied Physics Letters

We demonstrate experimentally manipulation of supercurrent in Al-AlO_x-Ti Josephson tunnel junctions by injecting quasiparticles in a Ti island from two additional tunnel-coupled Al superconducting reservoirs. Both supercurrent enhancement and quenching with respect to equilibrium are achieved. We demonstrate cooling of the Ti line by quasiparticle injection from the normal state deep into the superconducting phase. A model based on heat transport and non-monotonic current-voltage characteristic of a Josephson junction satisfactorily accounts for our findings., Comment: 4 pages, 4 colour figures, published version