26 research outputs found
Cooling of suspended nanostructures with tunnel junctions
We have investigated electronic cooling of suspended nanowires with SINIS
tunnel junction coolers. The suspended samples consist of a free standing
nanowire suspended by four narrow ( 200 nm) bridges. We have compared two
different cooler designs for cooling the suspended nanowire. We demonstrate
that cooling of the nanowire is possible with a proper SINIS cooler design
Fabrication and Electrical Characterization of Fully CMOS Si Single Electron Devices
We present electrical data of silicon single electron devices fabricated with
CMOS techniques and protocols. The easily tuned devices show clean Coulomb
diamonds at T = 30 mK and charge offset drift of 0.01 e over eight days. In
addition, the devices exhibit robust transistor characteristics including
uniformity within about 0.5 V in the threshold voltage, gate resistances
greater than 10 G{\Omega}, and immunity to dielectric breakdown in electric
fields as high as 4 MV/cm. These results highlight the benefits in device
performance of a fully CMOS process for single electron device fabrication.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
Single charge sensing and transport in double quantum dots fabricated from commercially grown Si/SiGe heterostructures
We perform quantum Hall measurements on three types of commercially available
modulation doped Si/SiGe heterostructures to determine their suitability for
depletion gate defined quantum dot devices. By adjusting the growth parameters,
we are able to achieve electron gases with charge densities 1-3 X 10^{11}/cm^2
and mobilities in excess of 100,000 cm^2/Vs. Double quantum dot devices
fabricated on these heterostructures show clear evidence of single charge
transitions as measured in dc transport and charge sensing and exhibit electron
temperatures of 100 mK in the single quantum dot regime.Comment: Related papers at http://pettagroup.princeton.ed
Strain sensing with sub-micron sized Al-AlOx-Al tunnel junctions
We demonstrate a local strain sensing method for nanostructures based on
metallic Al tunnel junctions with AlOx barriers. The junctions were fabricated
on top of a thin silicon nitride membrane, which was actuated with an AFM tip
attached to a stiff cantilever. A large relative change in the tunneling
resistance in response to the applied strain (gauge factor) was observed, up to
a value 37. This facilitates local static strain variation measurements down to
~10^{-7}.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Electronic and thermal sequential transport in metallic and superconducting two-junction arrays
The description of transport phenomena in devices consisting of arrays of
tunnel junctions, and the experimental confirmation of these predictions is one
of the great successes of mesoscopic physics. The aim of this paper is to give
a self-consistent review of sequential transport processes in such devices,
based on the so-called "orthodox" model. We calculate numerically the
current-voltage (I-V) curves, the conductance versus bias voltage (G-V) curves,
and the associated thermal transport in symmetric and asymmetric two-junction
arrays such as Coulomb-blockade thermometers (CBTs),
superconducting-insulator-normal-insulator-superconducting (SINIS) structures,
and superconducting single-electron transistors (SETs). We investigate the
behavior of these systems at the singularity-matching bias points, the
dependence of microrefrigeration effects on the charging energy of the island,
and the effect of a finite superconducting gap on Coulomb-blockade thermometry.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures; Berlin (ISBN: 978-3-642-12069-5
Positive Selection in East Asians for an EDAR Allele that Enhances NF-κB Activation
Genome-wide scans for positive selection in humans provide a promising approach to establish links between genetic variants and adaptive phenotypes. From this approach, lists of hundreds of candidate genomic regions for positive selection have been assembled. These candidate regions are expected to contain variants that contribute to adaptive phenotypes, but few of these regions have been associated with phenotypic effects. Here we present evidence that a derived nonsynonymous substitution (370A) in EDAR, a gene involved in ectodermal development, was driven to high frequency in East Asia by positive selection prior to 10,000 years ago. With an in vitro transfection assay, we demonstrate that 370A enhances NF-κB activity. Our results suggest that 370A is a positively selected functional genetic variant that underlies an adaptive human phenotype