1. Single Electron Transistor (SET)
A single electron transistor is similar to a normal transistor (below), except
the channel is replaced by a small dot.
the dot is separated from source and drain by thin insulators.
An electron tunnels in two steps: source  dot  drain
The gate voltage Vg is used to control the charge on the gate-dot capacitor Cg .
How can the charge be controlled with the precision of a single electron?
Kouwenhoven et al., Few Electron Quantum Dots, Rep. Prog. Phys. 64, 701 (2001). e- e-
dot Cg Vg
gate
source
drain
channel

2. Single Electron Transistors
Designs for
Single Electron Transistors
Nanoparticle attracted electrostatically to the gap between source and drain electrodes.
The gate is underneath.

3. Charging a Dot, One Electron at a Time
Sweeping the gate voltage Vg changes the charge Qg on the gate-dot capacitor Cg . To add one electron requires the vol- tage Vg  e/Cg since Cg=Qg/Vg.
The source-drain conductance G is zero for most gate voltages, because putting even one extra electron onto the dot would cost too much Coulomb energy. This is called Coulomb blockade .
Electrons can hop onto the dot only at a gate voltage where the number of electrons on the dot flip-flops between N and N Their time-averaged number is N+½ in that case.
The spacing between these half-integer conductance peaks is an integer.
dot
Vg  e/Cg
Electrons
on the dot
N-½ N+½ Cg e- Vg N
N-1
This picture is for a small negative source voltage (and an equally small positive drain voltage) which draws electrons from source to drain. Both voltages are assumed to be negligible compared to the gate voltage.

4. The SET as Extremely Sensitive Charge Detector
At low temperature, the conductance peaks in a SET become very sharp.
Consequently, a very small change in the gate voltage half-way up a peak produces a large current change, i.e. a large amplification. That makes the SET extremely sensitive to tiny charges.
The flip side of this sensitivity is that a SET detects every nearby electron. When it hops from one trap to another, the SET produces a noise peak.
Sit here:

5. Gate Voltage versus Source-Drain Voltage
The situation gets a bit confusing, because there are two voltages that can be varied, the gate voltage Vg and the source-drain voltage Vs-d .
Both affect the conductance. Therefore, one often plots the conductance G against both voltages (see the next slide for data).
Schematically, one obtains “Coulomb diamonds”, which are regions with a stable electron number N on the dot (and consequently zero conductance). G
Vs-d Vg 1 2 3 4
1/ / / /2

6. Note the different voltage scales (V versus mV). The same

7. Including the Energy Levels of a Quantum Dot
Contrary to the Coulomb blockade model, the data show Coulomb diamonds with uneven size. Some electron numbers have particularly large diamonds, indicating that the corresponding electron number is particularly stable.
This is reminiscent of the closed electron shells in atoms. Small dots behave like artificial atoms when their size shrinks down to the electron wavelength.
Continuous energy bands become quantized (see Lecture 8). Adding one electron requires the Coulomb energy U plus the difference E between two quantum levels (next slide) . If a second electron is added to the same quantum level (the same shell in an atom), E vanishes and only the Coulomb energy U is needed.
The quantum energy levels can be extracted from the spacing between the conductance peaks by subtracting the Coulomb energy U = e2/C .

8. Quantum Dot in 2D (Disk)
Filling the Electron Shells in 2D

9. Magic Numbers (in 3D)
Shell Structure of Energy Levels for Various Potentials E
Potentials:

10. Two Step Tunneling source  dot  drain drain source empty N (filled)
This is a more sophisticated version of the energy level diagram of a single electron transistor which combines the Coulomb energy with the quantum energy. The Coulomb energy is the large energy difference between the blocks of narrowly-spaced quantum energy levels. When changing the number of electrons from N (left) to N+1(right), all quantum levels are shifted up by the Coulomb energy U.
Left: An electron gets ready to tunnel (“hop”) across the energy barrier of the insulator into the lowest empty quantum level of the dot (the LUMO in chemistry language).
Right: When the electron sits on the dot, we have to use the level diagram for N+1 electrons, where all the levels are shifted up by the charging energy (right). The extra electron now occupies the highest occupied quantum level (the HOMO in chemistry language). Eventually it tunnels out to the drain.
The gate voltage shifts these energy levels up and down and thereby makes it possible to access levels with different electron numbers N.
(For a detailed explanation see the annotation in the .ppt version.)

11. Coulomb Energy U
Two stable charge states of a dot with N and N+1 electrons are separated by the Coulomb energy U=e2/C . The dot capacitance C decreases when shrinking the dot. Consequently, the Coulomb energy U increases. When U exceeds the thermal energy kBT, single electron charging can be detected. At room temperature ( kBT ≈ 25 meV ) this requires dots smaller than 10 nm (Lect. 2, Slide 2) .
Some nitty-gritty details:
The actual charging energy of a capacitor is given by ½QV (Q = charge, V = Voltage). The factor ½ comes from the fact that not all of the charge is added at full voltage when charging a capacitor. Use the definition of the capacitance C=Q/V and set Q=e.
The energy difference U between the levels with N and N+1 electrons on a dot is twice the charging energy. This can be seen from the Coulomb diamonds in Slide 5. To change the most stable charge state at the center of each diamond by 1 requires twice the gate voltage Vg than to get conductance across the dot (see the half-integer conductance peaks).
In Lecture 2, Slide 2, the dielectric constant of silicon was used to arrive at the length scale of 9 nm.
Another source of confusion is the choice of the capacitance. A SET has (at least) two capacitances to choose from, the gate-dot capacitance Cg and the capacitance C between the gate and all the other electrodes (gate, source, drain). Roughly speaking, one needs to choose Cg when varying the gate voltage and C when varying the source-drain voltage. That gives rise to the different voltage scales in the Coulomb diamond plot (Slide 6, note the different scales, V versus mV). Adding the same charge to the dot requires a much larger gate voltage Vg than source-drain voltage Vs-d . This is due to the relation V=e/C (definition of the capacitance) and the fact that Cg is always smaller than C (parallel capacitances add up). d
Coulomb energy U=e2/C of a spherical dot embedded in a medium with dielectric constant , with the counter electrode at infinity : 2e2/ d

12. Conditions for a Coulomb Blockade
1) The Coulomb energy e2/C needs to exceed the thermal energy kBT. Otherwise an extra electron can get onto the dot with thermal energy instead of being blocked by the Coulomb energy. A dot needs to be either small (<10 nm at 300K) or cold (< 1K for a m sized dot). 2) The residence time t=RC of an electron on the dot needs to be so long that the corresponding energy uncertainty E=h/t = h/RC is less than the Coulomb energy e2/C . That leads to a condition for the tunnel resistance between the dot and source/drain: R > h/e2  26 k

13. Superconducting SET
A superconducting SET sample with a 2 mm long island and 70 nm wide leads. The gate at the bottom allows control of the number of electrons on the island.

14. Superconducting SET
Current vs. charge curves for a superconducting dot with normal metals as source and drain. At low temperatures (bottom) the period changes from e to 2e, indicating the involvement of Cooper pairs.

15. Single Electron Turnstile

16. Precision Standards from “Single” Electronics
Count individual electrons, pairs, flux quanta
Current I Coulomb Blockade
Voltage V Josephson Effect
I = e f
V = h/2e · f
V/I = R = h/e2
Resistance R Quantum Hall Effect
(f = frequency)