Current and shot noise in two capacitively coupled single electron transistors with an atomic sized spacer

The currents and their fluctuations in two capacitively coupled single electron transistors are determined in the limit of sequential tunnelling. Our considerations are restricted to the case when the islands (dots) of the transistors are atomic-sized, which means each of them has only one single electronic level available for the tunnelling processes. The Coulomb interactions of accumulated charges on the both single electron transistors lead to the effect of the negative differential resistance. An enhancement of the current shot-noise was also found. Spectral decomposition analysis indicated the two main contributions to the shot-noise: low- and high-frequency fluctuations. It was found that the low frequency fluctuations (polarization noise) are responsible for a strong enhancement of the current noise. Received 9 October 2001 / Received in final form 8 March 2002 Published online 9 July 2002