Full counting statistics in strongly interacting systems: non-Markovian effects

We present a theory of full counting statistics for electron transport through interacting electron systems with non-Markovian dynamics. We illustrate our approach for transport through a single-level quantum dot and a metallic single-electron transistor to second order in the tunnel coupling, and discuss under which circumstances non-Markovian effects appear in the transport properties.     

Coulomb promotion of spin-dependent tunneling

We study transport of spin-polarized electrons through a magnetic single-electron transistor (SET) in the presence of an external magnetic field. Assuming the SET to have a nanometer size central island with a single-electron level we find that the interplay on the island between coherent spin-flip dynamics and Coulomb interactions can make the Coulomb correlations promote rather than suppress the current through the device. We find the criteria for this new phenomenon--Coulomb promotion of spin-dependent tunneling--to occur.     

Coulomb blockade and hopping transport behaviors of donor-induced quantum dots in junctionless transistors

The ionized dopants, working as quantum dots in silicon nanowires, exhibit potential advantages for the development of atomic-scale transistors. We investigate single electron tunneling through a phosphorus dopant induced quantum dots array in heavily n-doped junctionless nanowire transistors. Several subpeaks splittings in current oscillations are clearly observed due to the coupling of the quantum dots at the temperature of 6 K. The transport behaviors change from resonance tunneling to hoping conduction with increased temperature. The charging energy of the phosphorus donors is approximately 12.8 meV. This work helps clear the basic mechanism of electron transport through donor-induced quantum dots and electron transport properties in the heavily doped nanowire through dopant engineering.     

Heat transistor: demonstration of gate-controlled electronic refrigeration

We present experiments on a superconductor-normal-metal electron refrigerator in a regime where single-electron charging effects are significant. The system functions as a heat transistor; i.e., the heat flux out from the normal-metal island can be controlled with a gate voltage. A theoretical model developed within the framework of single-electron tunneling provides a full quantitative agreement with the experiment. This work serves as the first experimental observation of Coulombic control of heat transfer and, in particular, of refrigeration in a mesoscopic system.     

Studying the possibility of building a single-electron transistor based on a molecule with a monatomic charge center

The single-particle electron energy spectrum and total electron energy spectra of a hydrogenically passivated central fragment of a coordination compound of rhodium with an aurophile terpyridine derivative (CCRATD) in different charge states ranging from–3e to +3e are obtained. The electron transport characteristics for a single-electron molecular transistor based on a CCRATD molecule are calculated and analyzed.     

Single electron charging of InAs quantum dots characterized by δ-doped channel conductivity

The electron tunneling through single self-assembled InAs dot in split-gate δ-doped channel transistor structure is reported for the first time. In the nearly pinch-off conditions, the channel current was found to manifest itself single-electron tunneling through a self-assembled InAs dot buried in adjacent to the channel. The line shape of the single-electron tunneling current through a single InAs dot is discussed.     

Phonon-assisted zero bias anomaly in a single-molecule quantum dot coupled to the Luttinger liquid leads

The joint effects of the electron–phonon interaction and electron–electron interaction in the Luttinger liquid leads on nonequilibrium transport through a single-molecule transistor in the Kondo regime are investigated by using the improved canonical transformation scheme and equation of motion approach. For weak intralead electron interaction, a pronounced dip around zero bias, accompanied by a series of discrete single-electron tunneling peaks is observed in the differential conductance. With the increase of the intralead interaction, the phonon-assisted peaks turn into dips, which demonstrates a phonon-assisted two-channel Kondo physics. For a certain region of interaction strength the inelastic electron tunneling can dominate electron transport. Our results well explain the experiments of zero bias anomaly.     

Carrier conduction in a Si-nanocrystal-based single-electron transistor-I. Effect of gate bias

We have successfully fabricated a single-electron transistor based on undoped Si nanocrystals having radii of approximately 3 nm. Gate voltage oscillation was observed from low temperature to room temperature and Coulomb diamonds found to decrease in size with increasing gate voltage. The 3D calculation of the energy band structure of the Si nanocrystals and the interactions among the nanocrystals shows the increase of the quantum confinement effect when the dimensionality of the system decreases. At the same time the reduction in the dimensionality causes a decrease in the interaction among nanocrystals in an exponential manner. The carrier transport properties observed experimentally have been well understood in terms of carrier tunneling and Coulomb blockade effects. It is concluded that for the present single-electron transistor, the energy separation of the first excited sublevel and the ground state is rather large so that the Coulomb diamonds observed in the carrier transport characteristics are determined mainly by the Coulomb charging effect.     

Violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law in a single-electron transistor

We study the influence of Coulomb interaction on the thermoelectric transport coefficients for a metallic single-electron transistor. By performing a perturbation expansion up to second order in the tunnel-barrier conductance, we include sequential and cotunneling processes as well as quantum fluctuations that renormalize the charging energy and the tunnel conductance. We find that Coulomb interaction leads to a strong violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law: the Lorenz ratio becomes gate-voltage dependent for sequential tunneling, and is increased by a factor 9/5 in the cotunneling regime. Finally, we suggest a measurement scheme for an experimental realization.     

Physics of the insulating phase in dilute two-dimensional electron gas

We propose to use the radiofrequency single-electron transistor as an extremely sensitive probe to detect the time-periodic ac signal generated by a sliding electron lattice in the insulating state of the two-dimensional electron gas. We also propose to use the optically-pumped NMR technique to probe the electron spin structure of the insulating state. We show that the electron effective mass and spin susceptibility are strongly enhanced by critical fluctuations of the electron lattice in the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition, as observed in experiment.     

Quantum-size effects on the characteristics of single-electron tunneling

Effects of single-electron tunneling charging and Coulomb blockade in a cluster structure (molecular transistor) with regard to the quantization of electron levels in an island electrode are investigated. The spectrum of electrons is calculated for small disk-shaped clusters. Restrictions connected with the Coulomb instability of the cluster and electron relaxation are introduced in the theory. The current gap and its voltage asymmetry are calculated for single-electron transistors based on small gold clusters. The effect of the cluster shape on the current gap is investigated.     

Ab initio modelling of boron and nitrogen in diamond nanowires

In this study an analysis is presented of the bonding and structural properties of dehydrogenated and hydrogenated doped cylindrical diamond nanowires calculated using the Vienna Ab Initio Simulation Package, employing density functional theory within the generalized-gradient approximation. The dopants studied here have been inserted substitutionally along the axis of an infinite one-dimensional diamond nanowire and include the single-electron acceptor boron and the single-electron donor nitrogen. The doped nanowires have then been re-relaxed, and properties compared with the undoped structures. The structural properties of relaxed nanowires considered here include an examination bonding via the electron charge density, with the aim of providing a better understanding of the effects of dopants on the stability of diamond nanostructures and nanodevices.     

Proximity effect of electron beam lithography on single-electron transistors

A simple method, based on the proximity effect of electron beam lithography, alleviated by exposing various shapes in the pattern of incident electron exposures with various intensities, was applied to fabricate silicon point-contact devices. The drain current (I _d) of the device oscillates against gate voltage. The electrical characteristics of the single-electron transistor were observed to be consistent with the expected behavior of electron transport through gated quantum dots, up to 150 K. The dependence of the electrical characteristics on the dot size reveals that the I _d oscillation follows from the Coulomb blockade by poly-Si grains in the poly-Si dot. The method of fabrication of this device is completely compatible with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology, raising the possibility of manufacturing large-scale integrated nanoelectronic systems.     

Resonance breakdown of a Coulomb blockade due to the mechanical vibrations of a quantum dot

The effect of forced mechanical vibrations of a suspended single-electron transistor on Coulomb-blockade limited electron tunneling through a quantum dot has been studied. The mechanical vibrations of the quantum dot have been shown to result in the Coulomb blockade breakdown, which is manifested by narrow resonance peaks of the transistor conductance as a function of the excitation frequency at the frequencies corresponding to the eigenmodes of the mechanical vibrations. The mechanism of the observed effect presumably associated with the oscillations of the mutual electrical capacitances between the quantum dot and the surrounding electrodes is discussed.     

Spin injection in ferromagnetic single-electron transistor

We consider the single-electron transistor with ferromagnetic outer electrodes and nonmagnetic island. Tunneling current causes nonequilibrium electron–spin distribution in the island. The dependencies of the magnetoresistance ratio on the bias and gate voltages show the dips which are directly related to the induced separation of Fermi levels for electrons with different spins.     

A scheme for electrical detection of single-electron spin resonance

We study a scheme for electrical detection of the spin resonance of a single-electron trapped near a field effect transistor (FET) conduction channel. In this scheme, the resonant Rabi oscillations of the trapped electron spin cause a modification of the average charge of a shallow trap, which can be detected through the change in the FET channel resistivity. We show that the dependence of the channel resistivity on the frequency of the rf field can have either peak or dip at the Larmor frequency of the electron spin in the trap.     

A method of dopant electron energy spectrum parameterization for calculation of single-electron nanodevices

Solitary dopants in semiconductors and dielectrics that possess stable electron structures and interesting physical properties may be used as building blocks of quantum computers and sensor systems that operate based on new physical principles. This study proposes a phenomenological method of parameterization for a single-particle energy spectrum of dopant valence electrons in crystalline semiconductors and dielectrics that takes electron–electron interactions into account. It is proposed to take electron–electron interactions in the framework of the outer electron shell model into account. The proposed method is applied to construct the procedure for the determination of the effective dopant outer shell capacity and the method for calculation of the tunneling current in a single-electron device with one or several active dopants–charge centers.     

多岛单电子晶体管的实现及其源漏特性分析

在淀积有纳米间隙栅电极、源电极和漏电极的衬底上生长量子点，制作出多岛结构的单电子晶体管.在77K温度下对源漏特性进行了测试，得到了库仑阻塞特性.并且成功抑制了单岛单电子晶体管中易出现的共隧穿效应，观察到较大的库仑阈值电压.对试验数据进行了分析，阐明了岛的不同结构组态产生的不同输运效果. 关键词： 单电子晶体管 量子点 库仑阻塞     

Dynamical symmetry breaking in transport through molecules

We analyze the interplay between vibrational and electronic degrees of freedom in charge transport across a molecular single-electron transistor. We focus on the wide class of molecules which possess quasidegenerate vibrational eigenstates, while no degeneracy occurs for their anionic configuration. We show that the combined effect of a thermal environment and coupling to leads, involving tunneling events charging and discharging the molecule, leads to a dynamical symmetry breaking where quasidegenerate eigenstates acquire different occupations. This imbalance gives rise to a characteristic asymmetry of the current versus an applied gate voltage.     

Point-contact transport properties of strongly correlated electrons on liquid helium

We present transport measurements of a nondegenerate two-dimensional electron system on the surface of liquid helium at a point constriction. The constriction is formed in a microchannel by a split gate beneath the helium surface. The electrostatic energy of the electron system, which depends in part on the electron density, determines the split-gate voltage threshold of current flow through the constriction. Steplike increases in conductance are observed as the confinement strength is reduced. As the Coulomb interaction between electrons is strong, we attribute this effect to the increase in the number of electrons that can pass simultaneously through the constriction. Close to the threshold, single-electron transport is observed.