Single Electron Transistors

使现代计算机存储成为可能的晶体管起到电子开关的作用。当晶体管上没有电子时，电流就不能流动，晶体管就关断了。当栅极上的电压增加时，电子就会加到晶体管上，晶体管就会导通。在麻省理工学院和IBM的一项合作中，最近发现非常小的晶体管以一种非常不寻常的方式工作。与传统晶体管只有两种可能的状态--导通或关断--不同的是，每当栅极向非常小的晶体管添加一个电子时，它就会再次导通和关断。到目前为止，只有在很低的温度下才能观察到单电子行为。为了制造对电子应用有潜在用途的设备，必须达到更高的温度。工作温度由将电子从其中一根导线转移到晶体管所需的能量决定。这项拟议的工作将分离出决定这个能量尺度的参数，使单电子设备有可能在实际温度下运行。测试单电子晶体管极限速度的实验也计划进行。

The transistor that makes the modern computer memory possible works as an electronic switch. When there are no electrons on the transistor no current can flow and the transistor is turned off. When the voltage on a gate electrode is increased, electrons are added to the transistor and it turns on. In a collaboration between MIT and IBM it was recently discovered that very small transistors behave in a very unusual way. In contrast to conventional transistors which have only two possible states, either on or off, a very small transistor turns on and off again every time one electron is added to it by the gate. The single-electron behavior has so far been observed only at very low temperatures. In order to make devices that are potentially useful for electronic applications, a much higher temperature must be reached. The operating temperature is determined by the energy necessary to transfer an electron from one of its leads onto the transistor. The work proposed will isolate the parameters that determine this energy scale, making possible single-electron devices operating at practical temperatures. Experiments to test the ultimate speed of single-electron transistors are also planned.