Fabrication of Single Electron Devices within the Framework of CMOS Technology

Although single-electron devices have many advantages over conventional electronic devices and are therefore expected to have important applications for military, space, and commercial use, many fabrication challenges associated with nanoscale geometrical control have limited their implementation for practical use. The aim of this project was to create new single-electron device architecture and its associated fabrication techniques to realize single-electron device fabrication on a large scale, thereby enabling their implementation for practical applications. We demonstrated 1) chip-level fabrication of single-electron transistors, 2) that they can be fabricated in completely parallel processing, with each device individually addressable, 3) clear I-V characteristics of Coulomb blockade/staircase and Coulomb oscillations, and 4) that they can operate at room temperature. These results show that fabrication of integrated systems of room-temperature single-electron devices is now possible, paving a pathway toward practical use of single-electron devices.