Presented By Prashant Kumar M.Tech , NST, 2nd Sem.

Contents
Tunnel Junctions and applications of tunneling 1. Tunneling through a potential barrier 2. Potential Energy profiles of material interfaces 3. Applications of Tunneling Coulomb Blockade and Single Electron Transistor 1. Coulomb Blockade 2. Single Electron Transistor

Tunneling through a potential barrier

Tunneling Classical Picture

In classical mechanics, if E < V (the maximum height of the potential barrier), the particle remains in the well forever If E > V , the particle escapes

12

Tunneling Quantum picture

In Quantum Mechanics, the electron can escape even if its energy E is below the height of the barrier V Quantum tunneling has no counterpart in classical physics

13

Potential Energy profile of metal vacuum interfaces

Metal- Semiconductor Junction

Metal- Semiconductor Junction

Applications of tunneling
Field Emission

Gate Oxide Tunneling and Hot Electron Effects in

MOSFETs Scanning Tunneling Microscope Double Barrier Tunneling and Resonant Tunneling Diode

Field Emission

Fowler-Nordheim Tunneling

Scanning Tunneling Microscope

Double Barrier Tunneling and Resonant Tunneling Diode

Double barrier junction under applied bias

Coulomb Blockade and Single Electron Transistor

Tunneling is the process by which current can flow from lead to lead through quantum dot. Quantum dot which is merely a very small material region, is also called quantum island or coulomb island. We will model the quantum dot and exterior leads using the classical concept of capacitance, and consider electron conduction via tunneling, and so we use a mixed classical- quntum model. As we will see the most fundamental effect in nanoelectronics is related to the significant change in energy when a single electron is transferred into a nanoscopic material region , such as, a quantum dot is known as coulomb blockade.

Coulomb blockade in a nano capacitor

I-V characteristic in coulomb blockade

for air separating the plates at T= 293K.

Assuming square capacitor plates of length L, and for convenience assume d= L/10 Then to observe coulomb blockade we must have

L<< 70nm

(15)

If rather having a single electrons tunnel, assume that n electrons tunnel a group , i.e., it can be easily shown that

replace the expressions derived previously for the single charge. Equating the charging energy to the thermal energy we have

When a capacitor is a capacitor ?

TUNNEL JUNCTIONS
The tunneling that occurs across can be accounted by

considering the capacitor to be a leaky capacitor modeling by an ideal capacitance in parallel with a resistance

Rt = V/I
Where V is the DC voltage applied at the junction and I is the resulting current due to tunneling. This tunneling resistance is not an ordinary resistance, but conceptually allows electrons to cross the insulation junction as discrete events. The parallel combination of capacitor and tunneling resistance is called a tunneling junction.

TUNNEL JUNCTIONS

 In order to see Coulomb Blockade, we need to limit tunneling some

degree, we can get an estimate of this by considering the uncertainty relation between time and energy, E t /2 Time constant of parallel RC circuit is = RC Then = RtC is a characteristic time associated with tunneling. This is not the time to tunnel through the junction, but, rather the time between the tunneling events. is considered to be the approximate lifetime of energy state of the electron on one side of the barrier. Thus we have uncertainty in energy E / (2RtC) To observe the Coulomb Blockade effect, the charging energy must be much larger than this uncertainty, such that

Rt >> /q2e 4.1 K

Note that we have two effects to consider , capacitance value and the possibility of tunneling. In order to observe Coulomb blockade, we need very small values of capacitance to obtain large charging energy.

Tunnel Junction Excited by a constant current source

Tunneling from the lower to the upper plate can occur (since Coulomb Blockade is then thwarted) this results the decrease in the +ve charge on top plate And the increase of ve charge on the bottom plate

Coulomb Blockade in a quantum dot circuit

Single electron transistor

HISTORY
In 1985 Dmitri Averin and Konstantin Likharev proposed the idea of a new three-terminal device called a single-electron tunneling (SET) transistor. Two years later Theodore Fulton and Gerald Dolan at Bell Labs created SET Single-electron transistors have been made with just a few nanometers using 1. Metals 2. Semiconductors 3. Carbon nanotubes 4. Individual molecules

Single electron transistor

Uses Coulomb blockade for

functioning It consists of two electrodes known as the drain and the source, connected through tunnel junctions to one common electrode with a low selfcapacitance known as the island. The electrical potential of the island can be tuned by a third electrode, known as the gate, capacitively coupled to the island.

Single electron transistor Fabrication

Working
A key point is that charge passes

through the island in quantized units. For an electron to hop onto the island, its energy must equal the coulomb energy e2/2C. When a positive voltage is applied to the gate electrode the energy levels of the island electrode are lowered.

61

Working
When both the gate and the bias

voltages are zero, electrons do not have enough energy to enter the island and current does not flow. As the bias voltage between the source and drain is increased, an electron can pass through the island when the energy in the system reaches the coulomb energy. The critical voltage needed to transfer an electron onto the island equal to e/C, is called the coulomb gap energy
62

Working
(a)When a capacitor is charged through a resistor, the charge on the capacitor is proportional to the applied voltage and shows no sign of quantization. (b) When a tunnel junction replaces the resistor, a conducting island is formed between the junction and the capacitor plate. In this case the average charge on the island increases in steps as the voltage is increased (c)The steps are sharper for more resistive barriers and at lower temperatures.

63

 Here n1 and n2 are the number of electrons passed through the tunnel barriers 1 and 2 n = n1 n2 Total island capacitance and energy C = CG+C1+C2

I V characteristics for various gate voltages

65

Voltage transfer characteristics Vd vs Vg

(Coulomb Diamond)

67

Conductance Variation

68

Island - Metal or semiconductor

For a SET made of metal all diamonds would have identical size and there would be no variations of conductance outside the diamonds. Semiconductor SETs have diamonds of different sizes and peaks in differential conductance outside the diamonds, corresponding to excited states.
Ref : L.P. Kouwenhoven, T. H. Oosterkamp, M.W. S. Danoesastro, M. Eto, D. G. Austing, T. Honda, and S. Tarucha, Scienc 278 (1997) 1788
69

Effect of temperature

70

Operations at Room temperature

Kiriharas criteria: Tmax< e2/40kCS
Max Operating Temparature (K)

1000

100

Radius of Island (nm)

100

10

island capacitance <0.2aF island diameter ~ 1nm

10

1 0.1 1
Total island capacitance, CS (aF)

0.1

10

71

Voltage gain of a SET

Voltage gain in a SET is the ratio of the gate

capacitance to the junction capacitance Thus for every junction capacitance and temperature, there is a maximum voltage gain.
72

Noises in SET
Johnson noise: -electronic noise generated by the thermal agitation of the charge carriers - usually negligible (thanks to small kT) Shot noise -originates from the discrete nature of electric charge -but is lower in SET. Flicker noise - also known as pink noise. - dominant at low f, may shift the operational point and totally break down the operation Solution : Avoid metal-oxide devices which has a lot of glassy amorphous material surrounding the junctions 73

Advantage of SET
High Speed
Low power dissipation High band width Occupies less space on IC chip

Disadvantage of SET
Noise

Acknowledgements Dr A K V Sir for the guidance Md. Rameez for the eBook References Fundamentals of nanoelectronics by George W. Hanson

THANKS