Effects of electron levels broadening and electron temperature in tunnel structures based on metal nanoclusters

We study the influence of energy levels broadening and electron subsystem overheating in island electrode (cluster) on current–voltage characteristics of three-electrode structure. A calculation scheme for broadening effect in one-dimensional case is suggested. Estimation of broadening is performed for electron levels in disc-like and spherical gold clusters. Within the two-temperature model of metallic cluster and by using a size dependence of the Debye frequency the effective electron temperature as a function of bias voltage is found approximately. For helium temperature of ion subsystem, the heating temperature of electrons in a quantum disc is almost one order of magnitude higher than that in a sphere; it achieves thousands of Kelvin. We suggest that the effects of broadening and electron overheating are responsible for the smoothing of current–voltage curves, which is observed experimentally at low temperatures in structures based on clusters consisting of accountable number of atoms. However, a role of the broadening is much more significant.