An SOI single-electron transistor

Single-electron transistors (SETs) are currently being investigated by many research groups as possible devices for ultra-high-density, low-power information processing or storage systems. A single-electron transistor consists of two tunnel junctions (TJ) connected to the source and the drain, a center floating node and a capacitance connected to the device gate. It takes a finite minimum source-to center node bias to inject an electron into the node by tunneling. This effect is called Coulomb blockade. In this paper, SET devices were fabricated using thin-silicon (100 nm) Unibond/sup (R)/ wafers and e-beam lithography, and were found to exhibit the Coulomb blockade effects predicted by theory.