3,781 research outputs found
Characterization of All-Chromium Tunnel Junctions and Single Electron Tunneling Devices Fabricated by Direct-Writing Multilayer Technique
We report about the fabrication and analysis of the properties of Cr/CrO_x/Cr
tunnel junctions and SET transistors, prepared by different variants of
direct-writing multilayer technique. In all cases, the CrO_x tunnel barriers
were formed in air under ambient conditions. From the experiments on single
junctions, values for the effective barrier height and thickness were derived.
For the Cr/CrO_x/Cr SET transistors we achieved minimal junction areas of 17 x
60 nm^2 using a scanning transmission electron microscope for the e-beam
exposure on Si_3N_4 membrane substrate. We discuss the electrical performance
of the transistor samples as well as their noise behavior.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure
Single electron transistors with high quality superconducting niobium islands
Deep submicron Al-AlOx-Nb tunnel junctions and single electron transistors
with niobium islands were fabricated by electron beam gun shadow evaporation.
Using stencil masks consisting of the thermostable polymer polyethersulfone
(PES) and germanium, high quality niobium patterns with good superconducting
properties and a gap energy of up to 2Delta = 2.5 meV for the niobium were
achieved. The I(U) characteristics of the transistors show special features due
to tunneling of single Cooper pairs and significant gate modulation in both the
superconducting and the normal state.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Aluminum Single Electron Transistors with Islands Isolated from a Substrate
The low-frequency noise figures of single-electron transistors
(electrometers) of traditional planar and new stacked geometry were compared.
We observed a correlation between the charge noise and the contact area of the
transistor island with a dielectric substrate in the set of Al transistors
located on the same chip and having almost similar electric parameters. We have
found that the smaller the contact area the lower the noise level of the
transistor. The lowest noise value 8*10E-6 e/sqrt(Hz) at f = 10 Hz. has been
measured in a stacked transistor with an island which was completely isolated
from a substrate. Our measurements have unambiguously indicated that the
dominant source of the background charge fluctuations is associated with a
dielectric substrateComment: Review paper, latex, 10 pages, 7 figures, to be publ. in JLTP, 2000;
Proceeding of "Electron Transport in Mesoscopic Systems", August 12-15, 1999
Geteborg, Sweden, http://fy.chalmers.se/meso_satellite/index.html See also
LT22 manuscript: http://lt22.hut.fi/cgi/view?id=S1113
The single electron R-pump: first experiment
We fabricated and tested the single electron R-pump, i.e. a three-junction Al
circuit with on-chip Cr resistors. We show that due to the presence of the
resistors (R > h/e^2 = 25.8 kOhm), the accuracy of electron transfer in the
R-pump can approach the level of 10^-8. Preliminary results of experiment with
the R-pump made at PTB are reported.Comment: 2 pages, incl. 3 figure
Single-charge devices with ultrasmall Nb/AlOx/Nb trilayer Josephson junctions
Josephson junction transistors and 50-junction arrays with linear junction
dimensions from 200 nm down to 70 nm were fabricated from standard Nb/AlOx/Nb
trilayers. The fabrication process includes electron beam lithography, dry
etching, anodization, and planarization by chemical-mechanical polishing. The
samples were characterized at temperatures down to 25 mK. In general, all
junctions are of high quality and their I-U characteristics show low leakage
currents and high superconducting energy gap values of 1.35 meV. The
characteristics of the transistors and arrays exhibit some features in the
subgap area, associated with tunneling of Cooper pairs, quasiparticles and
their combinations due to the redistribution of the bias voltage between the
junctions. Total island capacitances of the transistor samples ranged from 1.5
fF to 4 fF, depending on the junction sizes. Devices made of junctions with
linear dimensions below 100 nm by 100 nm demonstrate a remarkable
single-electron behavior in both superconducting and normal state. We also
investigated the area dependence of the junction capacitances for transistor
and array samples.Comment: 19 pages incl. 2 tables and 11 figure
Storage capabilities of a 4-junction single electron trap with an on-chip resistor
We report on the operation of a single electron trap comprising a chain of
four Al/AlOx/Al tunnel junctions attached, at one side, to a memory island and,
at the other side, to a miniature on-chip Cr resistor R=50 kOhm which served to
suppress cotunneling. At appropriate voltage bias the bi-stable states of the
trap, with the charges differing by the elementary charge e, were realized. At
low temperature, spontaneous switching between these states was found to be
infrequent. For instance, at T=70 mK the system was capable of holding an
electron for more than 2 hours, this time being limited by the time of the
measurement.Comment: 3 pages of text and 2 figure
Gain Dependence of the Noise in the Single Electron Transistor
An extensive investigation of low frequency noise in single electron
transistors as a function of gain is presented. Comparing the output noise with
gain for a large number of bias points, it is found that the noise is dominated
by external charge noise. For low gains we find an additional noise
contribution which is compared to a model including resistance fluctuations. We
conclude that this excess noise is not only due to resistance fluctuations. For
one sample, we find a record low minimum charge noise of qn = 9*10^-6
e/sqrt(Hz) in the superconducting state and qn = 9*10^-6 e/sqrt(Hz) in the
normal state at a frequency of 4.4 kHz.Comment: 10 pages, LaTex 2.09, 4 figures (epsfig
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