Single Electron Transistors

使现代电子产品 计算机内存可能作为一个 电子开关 当没有 晶体管上的电子没有电流可以流动 并且晶体管被关断。 当 栅电极上的电压增加， 电子被添加到晶体管， 在麻省理工学院和 IBM最近发现， 小晶体管的行为方式非常不寻常。 与 只有两种可能的状态，开或关， 一个非常小的晶体管再次打开和关闭， 每增加一个电子， 门 到目前为止，单电子行为 只有在非常低的温度下才能观察到。 为了制造出有可能 对于电子应用来说， 必须达到更高的温度。 的 工作温度由 将电子从 其中一条引线连接到晶体管上。 工作 建议将隔离的参数， 确定这个能量尺度， 单电子器件在实际应用中 温度 实验来测试 单电子晶体管极限速度 也在计划中。

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.