Single-electron Devices Speaker: Qiaoyan Yu ECE
2 Agenda Milestone Motivations New characteristics Single-electron transistor (SET) Challenges Conclusions
3 Milestone In 1909, Millikan first illustrated the manipulation of single electrons. In 1985, Dmitri Averin & Konstantin Likharev proposed single-electron transistor. In 1987, Theodore Fulton & Gerald Doald at Bell lab fabricated and demonstrated SET.
4 Motivation Power consumption challenges high performance and high density chip design Faster and more information processing resulting in generating more heat flux Reduce the corresponding charge per bit! Single-electron Device!!!
5 SED new characteristics Exploit the quantum effect of tunneling Control and measure the movement of single electron Charge doest not flow continuously Instead in a quantized way Extremely high charge sensitivity High precise for charge measurement
6 Single-electron transistor (SET) Architecture Equivalent circuit Operation principle I-V curve SET VS. MOSFET
7 Architecture gate CgCg VgVg VbVb SourceDrain Tunnel junctions island C1C1 C2C2 +q1-q1 +q2-q2 q V2V2 V1V1
8 Equivalent circuit
9 Operation principle
10 Operation principle
11 Operation principle
12 I-V curve
13 SET vs. MOSFET Structure Two tunneling barrier vs. inversion channel Size Extremely small vs. large (although scaled down) Main physical principle Coulomb blockade vs. electron diffusion Threshold voltage & source-drain current Periodic vs. not periodic Sensitivity High vs. low (10000X) Power Low vs. high
14 SED challenges Difficult to precisely control the device implementation Characteristic of the device varies significantly from location to location Suffer from “offset charges” Randomly fluctuation of control signal
15 Conclusions Because of natural small dimension, SED is a potential solution for continue silicon scaling. It is not clear that SET replaces FET. It is certain that quantum properties of electrons will be crucial in the design of electron devices. Electron beam lithography and scanning probe techniques offer the best prospects for the future. Some more esoteric techniques based on atomic particle deposition and colloid chemistry may also provide some benefits.
16 The End Thank You! Any questions?