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1 Issue I, August 2013

ISSN: 2321-9653

I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O U R N A L F O R R E S E A R C H I N A P P L I E D S C I E N C E AN D
E N G I N E E R I N G T E C H N O L O G Y (I J R A S E T )

BASIC INTRODUCTION TO SINGLE ELECTRON

TRANSISTOR
Varun Mittal
VIDYA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, MEERUT
{Email: [email protected]}

Abstract-The goal of this paper is to review in brief the basic physics of nanoelectronic device single-electron transistor [SET] as well
as prospective applications and problems in their applications. The principles followed by SET device i.e. Coulomb Blockade, Kondo
Effect that is helpful in a number of applications. SET functioning based on the controllable transfer of single electrons between small
conducting "islands". The device properties dominated by the quantum mechanical properties of matter and provide new
characteristics coulomb oscillation. SET is able to shear domain with silicon transistor in near future and enhance the device density.
Recent research in SET gives new ideas which are going to revolutionize the random access memory and digital data storage
technologies.

Keywords- Kondo Effect, Coulomb Blockade, SET, Quantum Dot

I. INTRODUCTION II. HISTORY OF SET

The discovery of the transistor has clearly had enormous The effects of charge quantization were first observed in
impact, both intellectually and commercially, upon our lives tunnel junctions containing metal particles as early as 1968.
and work. A major vein in the corpus of condensed matter Than the idea that the Coulomb blockade can be overcome
physics, quite literally, owes its existence to this breakthrough. with a gate electrode was proposed by a number of
It also led to the microminiaturization of electronics, which researchers, and Kulik and Shekhter developed the theory of
has permitted human to have powerful computers that Coulomb-blockade oscillations, the periodic variation of
communicate easily with each other via the Internet. conductance as a function of gate voltage. Their theory was
classical, including charge quantization but not energy
Over the past 30 years, silicon technology has been quantization. However, it was not until 1987 that Fulton and
dominated by Moores law: the density of transistors on a Dolan .made the first SET, entirely out of metals, and observed
silicon integrated circuit doubles about every 18 months. To the predicted oscillations. They made a metal particle
continue the increasing levels of integration beyond the limits connected to two metal leads by tunnel junctions, all on top of
mentioned above, new approaches and architectures are an insulator with a gate electrode underneath. Since then, the
required .In todays digital integrated circuit architectures, capacitances of such metal SETs have been reduced to produce
transistors serve as circuit switches to charge and discharge very precise charge quantization.[1]
capacitors to the required logic voltage levels. Artificially
structured single electron transistors studied to date operate The first semiconductor SET was fabricated
only at low temperature, but molecular or atomic sized single accidentally in 1989 by Scott-Thomas in narrow Si field effect
electron transistors could function at room temperature. transistors. In this case the tunnel barriers were produced by
interface charges. Albeit with an unusual heterostructure with
AlGaAs on the bottom instead of the top. In these and similar
devices the effects of ener

quantization were easily observed. Only in the past few years The Kondo effect can be defined as when a droplet of
have metal SETs been made small enough to observe energy electrons is enclosed to a small region of space , the number of
quantization. Foxman also measured the level width and electrons and their energy become quantized. So, the droplet
showed how the energy and charge quantization are lost as the behaves like an artificial atom is coupled to conducting leads
resistance decreases toward h/e2. ,the Anderson Model, adesigned to explainthe coupling of
naturalatoms to metals.[2]
III. KONDO EFFECT IN SET

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I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O U R N A L F O R R E S E A R C H I N A P P L I E D S C I E N C E AN D
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The Anderson Model defined the behaviour of a
metal containing amagnetic impurity. At high temperatures
the spin of the impurity is independent of the spins of the
electrons in the metal, but at low temperature a spin singlet
state state is formed between the unpaired localized electron
and delocalized electrons at the fermi energy; in which the
spin of the impurity is screened by those of the conduction
electrons. The formation of this singlet as the temperature is
lowered results in strong scattering of the conduction electrons
near the fermi energy and aconsequent increase in the
resistance. How the singlet state envoles with temperature and Figure.1. Schematic diagram showing the transport of
the result of this evolution for magnetization and conductivity electrons and tunneling in SET.[10]
is called the kondo problem.
An arrangement of two conductors with an insulating
A magnetic field also alters the kondo effect applying
layer in between not only has a resistance, but also a finite
a magnetic field splits separates the unpaired localized electron
capacitance. The insulator is also called dielectric in this
state into a zeeman doublet separated by the energy g BB. This context, the tunnel junction behaves as a capacitor.
also separates the enhanced density of states at the fermi level
into two peaks with enegies g BB above and below the fermi
Electrons move continuously in the conventional
level.
transistors, but as the size of the transistors goes down to
Beginning in the late 1980s , theorists proposed that nanoscale, the transistors energy quantumized, that is the
the kondo effect should also arise in nanometer sized process of charging and discharging is discontinuous i.e.
structures that allow tunneling between localized states and
Ec=e2/2C
metal leads.[3]
Where C is the capacitance of this system and Ec is Coulomb
It was predicted that because scattering would
Blockade Energy, due to which previous electron repels new
increase rather than reduce transport for tunneling , the kondo
electron.[4] For nanoelectronic system capacitance is very
effect would increase the conductance instead of the
small, so Coulomb Blockade Energy(Ec) is very high and due
resistance at low temperature.
to electrons cannot move simultaneously, but must be passed
through one by one. This process is Coulomb Blockade and
IV. COULOMB BLOCKADE was first observed in 1980.

A tunnel junction is, in its simplest form, a thin insulating

barrier between two conducting electrodes. If the electrodes V. SINGLE ELECTRON TRANSISTOR
are superconducting, Cooper pairs (with a charge of two
elementary charges) carry the current. In the case that the Figure.2.shows the single electron transistor, consists of two
electrodes are normal conducting, i.e. neither superconducting tunnel junctions sharing one common electrode with a low
nor semiconducting, electrons (with a charge of one self-capacitance, known as the island. The electrical potential
elementary charge) carry the current. The following reasoning of the island can be tuned by a third electrode (the gate),
is for the case of tunnel junctions with an insulating barrier capacitively coupled to the island.
between two normal conducting electrodes (NIN junctions).

According to the laws of classical electrodynamics,

no current can flow through an insulating barrier. According to
the laws of quantum mechanics, however, there is a
nonvanishing (larger than zero) probability for an electron on
one side of the barrier to reach the other side (see quantum
tunnelling). When a bias voltage is applied, this means that
there will be a current, neglecting additional effects, the
tunnelling current will be proportional to the bias voltage. In
electrical terms, the tunnel junction behaves as a resistor with a
constant resistance, also known as an ohmic resistor. The
resistance depends exponentially on the barrier thickness.
Typical barrier thicknesses are on the order of one to several
nanometers

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decrease exponentially with the thickness, which is given
by the area of tunnel junction divided by the square of
wave length.

Quantum dot [QD] as shown in figure 3. is a

mesoscopic system in which the addition or removal of a
single electron can cause a change in the electrostatic
energy or Coulomb energy that is greater than the thermal
energy and can control the electron transport into and out
of the QD.

Figure.2. schematic diagram of the Single Electron Transistor

In the blocking state no accessible energy levels are

within tunneling range of the electron (red) on the source
contact. All energy levels on the island electrode with lower
energies are occupied.
Fig. 3. Quantum Dot Structure
When a positive voltage is applied to the gate electrode
the energy levels of the island electrode are lowered. The To understand the electron transport properties in
electron can tunnel onto the island, occupying a previously QD. Let us consider a metal nanoparticle sandwiched
vacant energy level. From there it can tunnel onto the drain between two metal electrodes shown in figure 4.
electrode where it inelastically scatters and reaches the drain
electrode Fermi level.

The energy levels of the island electrode are evenly

spaced with a separation of E. E is the energy needed to
each subsequent electron to the island, which acts as a self-
capacitance C. The lower C the bigger E gets. To achieve the
Coulomb blockade, three criteria have to be met:

1. The bias voltage can't exceed the charging energy

divided by the capacitance Vbias = ;
2. The thermal energy kBT must be below the charging
energy EC = , or else the electron will be able to pass
the QD via thermal excitation; and Figure.4 Energylevels of source, island and drain (from left to
3. The tunneling resistance (Rt) should be greater than, right) in a single electron transistor for both the blocking state
which is derived from Heisenberg's Uncertainty (upper part) and the transmitting state (lower part)[5]
principle.
The nanoparticle is separated from the electrodes by
VI. BASIC PHYSICS OF SET OPERATION vacuum or insulation layer such as oxide or organic molecules
so that only tunneling is allowed between them. So we can
Single Electron Transistor [SET] have been made with
model each of the nanoparticles-electrode junctions with a
critical dimensions of just a fewnanometer using metal,
resistor in parallel with a capacitor. The resistance is
semiconductor, carbon nanotubes or individual molecules.
determined by the electron tunneling and the capacitance
A SET consist of a small conducting island [Quantum
depends on the size of the particle. We denote the resistors and
Dot] coupled to source and drain leads by tunnel junctions
capacitors by R1, R2, C1 and C2, and the applied voltage
and capactively coupled to one or more gate. Unlike Field
between the electrodes by V. We will discuss how the current,
Effect transistor, Single electron device based on an
I depends on V. When we start to increase V from zero, no
intrinsically quantum phenomenon, the tunnel effect.[1]
current can flow between the electrodes because movement of
The electrical behaviour of the tunnel junction depends on
an electron onto (charging) or off (discharging) from an
how effectively barrier transmit the electron wave, which

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initially neutral nanoparticle cost energy by an amount given circuits is fairly substantial, of the order of 10-4e/RC. The
by equation 1. corresponding static power consumption is negligible for
relatively large devices operating at helium temperatures.
Ec= e2/2c
Charge State Logics- The problem of leakage current is solved
VII. APPLICATIONS OF SET by the use of another logic device name charge state logic in
which single bits of information are presented by the
Supersensitive Electrometer - The high sensitivity of single- presence/absence of single electrons at certain conducting
electron transistors have enabled them as electrometers in islands throughout the whole circuit. In these circuits the static
unique physical experiments. For example, they have made currents and power vanish, since there is no dc current in any
possible unambiguous observations of the parity effects in static state.[9]
superconductors.
Programmable Single Electron Transistor Logic- An SET
Single-Electron Spectroscopy-One of the most important having non volatile memory function is a key for the
application of single-electron electrometry is the possibility of programmable SET logic. The half period phase shift makes
measuring the electron addition energies (and hence the energy the function of SET complimentary to the conventional SETs.
level distribution) in quantum dots and other nanoscale As a result SETs having non-volatile memory function have
objects[6]. the functionality of both the conventional (n-MOS like) SETs
and the complementary (p-MOS like) SETs.[9]. By utilising
DC Current Standards - One of the possible applications of
this fact the function of SET circuit can be programmed, on
single-electron tunneling is fundamental standards of dc
the basis of function stored by the memory function. The
current for such a standard a phase lock SET oscillations or
charged around the QD of the SET namely an SET island shift
Bloch oscillations in a simple oscillator with an external RF
the phase of coulomb oscillation, the writing/erasing operation
source of a well characterized frequency f. The phase locking
of memory function which inject/eject charge to/from the
would provide the transfer of a certain number m of electrons
memory node near the SET island , makes it possible to tune
per period of external RF signal and thus generate dc current
the phase of coulomb oscillation. If the injected charge is
which is fundamentally related to frequency as I= mef.
adequate the phase shift is half period of the coulomb
Detection of Infrared Radiation- The calculations of the photo oscillation.
response of single-electron systems to electromagnetic
VIII. PROBLEMS IN THE SET IMPLEMENTATION[7]
radiation with frequency ~EC h have shown that generally the
response differs from that the well-known Tien-Gordon theory Lithography Techniques- The first biggest problem with all
of photon-assisted tunneling. In fact, this is based on the single-electron logic devices is the requirement Ec~100kBT,
assumption of independent (uncorrelated) tunneling events, which in practice means sub-nanometer island size for room
while in single-electron systems the electron transfer is temperature operation. In VLSI circuits, this fabrication
typically correlated. This fact implies that single-electron technology level is very difficult. Moreover, even if these
devices, especially 1D multi-junction array with their low co- islands are fabricated by any sort of nanolithography, their
tunneling rate, may be used for ultra-sensitive video- and shape will hardly be absolutely regular. Since in such small
heterodyne detection of high frequency electromagnetic conductors the quantum kinetic energy gives a dominant
radiation, similar to the superconductor-insulator contribution to the electron addition energy (Ek >> Ec,), even
superconductor (SIS) junctions and arrays.[8] small variations in island shape will lead to unpredictable and
rather substantial variations in the spectrum of energy levels
Voltage State Logics- The single-electron transistors can be
and hence in the device switching thresholds.
used in the "voltage state" mode. In this mode, the input gate
voltage U controls the source-drain current of the transistor Room Temperature Operation- The first big problem with all
which is used in digital logic circuits, similarly to the usual the known types of single-electron logic devices is the
field-effect transistors (FETs). This means that the single- requirement Ec ~ 100 kBT, which in practice means sub-
electron charging effects are confined to the interior of the nanometer island size for room temperature operation. in such
transistor, while externally it looks like the usual electronic small conductors the quantum kinetic energy gives a dominant
device switching multi-electron currents, with binary contribution to the electron addition energy even small
unity/zero presented with high/low dc voltage levels variations in island shape will lead to unpredictable and rather
(physically not quantized). This concept simplifies the circuit substantial variations in the spectrum of energy levels and
designwhich may ignore all the single-electron physics hence in the device switching thresholds.[12]
particulars[6]. One substantial disadvantage of voltage state
circuits is that neither of the transistors in each complementary
pair is closed toowell, so that the static leakage current in these

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I N T E R N A T I O N A L J O U R N A L F O R R E S E A R C H I N A P P L I E D S C I E N C E AN D
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Linking SETs with the Outside Environment- The individual [2] M.A.Kastner,D.Goldhaber-Gordon, kondo physics with
structures patterns which function as logic circuits must be Single Electron Transistors,SolidState Communications 119
arranged into larger 2D patterns. pp. 245-252,2001.

[3]Journal,www.nature.com/nature/journal/v391/n6663/abs/3
91156a0.html

[4] Ling Yang,review for Single Electron

Transistor,www.eng.uc.edu/~gbeaucag/Classes/Nanopowders
/Applications/LingYangSingleElecTransisto.pdf

[5]Wikipedia,en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulomb_blockade

[6] Om Kumar, Manjit Kaur,single Electron Transitors

Applications and problems, International Journal of VLSI
design & Communication Systems (VLSICS) Vol.1, No.4,
December 2010

[7] Lingjie Guo, Effendi Leobandung and Stephen Y. Chou,

A silicon Single-Electron transistor Memory operating at
Fig. 5. Nanoparticleinsulator structures proposed in the room temperature, Science Vol. 275, pp. 649-651, 1997.
wireless computing schemes of Korotkov (top) and Lent
(bottom). The circles represent quantum dots, the lines are [8] A.N. Cleand, D. Estene, C. Urbina and M.H. Devoret, An
insulating spacers.[11] extremely Low noise Photodetector based on the single
electron Transistor , Journal of Low Temperature Physics,
There are two ideas. The first is to integrating SET as well as Vol. 93, Nos. 3/4, pp.767-772, 1993.
related equipments with the existed MOSFET, this is attractive
because it can increase the integrating density. The second [9] Ken Uchida, Jugli Kaga, Ryuji Ohba and Akira Toriumi,
option is to give up linking by wire, instead utilizing the static Programmable Single-Electron Transistor Logic for Future
electronic force between the basic clusters to form a circuit Low-Power Intelligent LSI: Proposal and Room-Temperature
linked by clusters, which is called quantum cellular automata Operation, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 50,
(QCA). The advantage of QCA is its fast information transfer No. 7, July 2003
velocity between cells (almost near optic velocity) via
electrostatic interactions only, no wire is needed between [10] T.A. Fulton and G.D. Dolan, Observation of single
arrays and the size of each cell can be as small as 2.5nm, this electron charging effect in small tunneling junction, Phys.
made them very suitable for high density memory and the next Rev. Lett., Vol. 59, pp. 109-112, July 1987.
generation quantum computer.
[11]Feldhein D L, Keating C D, Chem Soc Rev, v27, 1998, p1
IX. CONCLUSION
[12]Masumi Saitoh, Hidehiro Harata1ion and Toshiro
Single Electronic Transistor (SET) has proved their value as Hiramoto, Room-Temperature Demonstration of Integrated
tool in scientific research. Resistance of SET is determined by Silicon Single-Electron Transistor Circuits for Current
the electron tunneling and the capacitance depends on the size Switching and Analog Pattern Matching, IEEE International
of the nanoparticle. The current starts to flow through the Electron Device Meeting, San Francisco, USA, 2004
junction when applied voltage is just sufficient to raise the
energy of electron above the coulomb blocked, this is called
threshold voltage Vth and the flat zero current persist for 2Vth.

REFERENCES

[1] M. A. Kastner, The single electron transistor and artificial

atoms, Ann. Phy. (Leipzig), vol. 9, pp. 885-895, 2000.

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