Single Electron Transistors

使现代计算机存储器成为可能的晶体管作为一个电子开关工作。当晶体管上没有电子时，电流就不能流动，晶体管就关闭了。当栅极上的电压增加时，电子被加到晶体管上，晶体管就打开了。在麻省理工学院和IBM的合作中，最近发现非常小的晶体管的行为方式非常不寻常。传统晶体管只有两种可能的状态，要么开，要么关，与之相反，一个非常小的晶体管每次通过栅极加入一个电子时，就会再次打开或关闭。到目前为止，单电子的行为只在很低的温度下被观察到。为了制造可能对电子应用有用的器件，必须达到更高的温度。工作温度是由电子从其中一根引线转移到晶体管上所需的能量决定的。这项工作将分离出决定能量尺度的参数，使单电子器件在实际温度下工作成为可能。还计划进行测试单电子晶体管极限速度的实验。

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.