  A superconductor with a gap in the density of states or a quantum dot with
discrete energy levels is a central building block in realizing an electronic
on-chip cooler. They can work as energy filters, allowing only hot
quasiparticles to tunnel out from the electrode to be cooled. This principle
has been employed experimentally since the early 1990s in investigations and
demonstrations of micrometre-scale coolers at sub-kelvin temperatures. In this
paper, we review the basic experimental conditions in realizing the coolers and
the main practical issues that are known to limit their performance. We give an
update of experiments performed on cryogenic micrometre-scale coolers in the
past five years.
