Sensing of single electrons using micro and nano technologies: a review

Jalil, Jubayer; Zhu, Yong; Ekanayake, Chandima; Ruan, Yi

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/aa57aa

Cited by 30 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 105 publications

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“…The sensing of charge with high resolution plays an important role widening the use of electrometers or charge sensors in many diverse applications, such as surface charge analysis, mass spectrometry, tunneling microscopy, powder technology and aerosol science, bimolecular charge detection and ionization current measurement in ionization chambers [1]. The commercial transistor based electrometer, such as, the Keithley 6517A has a minimum charge resolution of 10 fC (∼ 63k electrons) [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Room-Temperature Sensing of Single Electrons Using Vibrating-Reed Electrometer in Silicon-on-Glass Technology

Jalil

Ruan

Zhu

2018

IEEE Electron Device Lett.

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In the commonly-used existing silicon-on-insulator (SOI) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) process, a siliconoxide-silicon sandwich structure in the sensor device creates parasitic capacitance, which reduces the charge sensitivity. In this letter, for the first time, we demonstrate a vibrating-reed based electrometry system with high sensitivity and resolution in the silicon-on-glass (SOG) MEMS process. In this work, we utilize a glass substrate instead of silicon to ameliorate charge sensitivity by reducing the parasitic capacitance. An improved preamplifier circuit topology incorporating with the proposed sensor shows a sensitivity of 1.43×10 11 V/C, which is the highest in the literature. In addition, the best charge resolution of 1.03 e/ √ Hz@5.7 kHz has achieved at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. This result provides strong evidence for the validity of our SOG based MEMS device as a charge sensor for detecting even a single electron.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Room-Temperature Sensing of Single Electrons Using Vibrating-Reed Electrometer in Silicon-on-Glass Technology

Jalil

Ruan

Zhu

2018

IEEE Electron Device Lett.

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“…Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) show potential for creating extremely sensitive charge sensors. These sensors, or electrometers, are used in mass spectrometry, detection of bio-analyte and aerosol particles, measurement of ionization radiation, space exploration, quantum computing and scanning tunneling microscopy [1][2][3]. Commercially, electrometers can sense a minimum equivalent charge of 5000 electrons [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other technologies have been used to detect charges smaller than one electron such as the single electron tunneling transistor. One such transistor detected an equivalent charge of 1.9 × 10 −6 electrons [3]. However, the sensing temperature was 4.2 Kelvin, which is too low for practical applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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MEMS Variable Area Capacitor for Room Temperature Electrometry

Underwood¹,

Laurvick²

2018

Eurosensors 2018

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This paper introduces a new way to detect charge using MEMS variable capacitors for extremely sensitive, room temperature electrometry. It is largely based on the electrometers introduced by Riehl et al.[1] except variable capacitance is created by a changing area, not a changing gap. The new scheme will improve MEMS electrometers by eliminating the effects of squeeze-film damping and by theoretically increasing the maximum charge resolution by 70%. The charge conversion gain (the increase in output voltage per input unit charge) for this system is derived. The result show good agreement with MATLAB calculations.

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“…A Single-electron transistor (SETs) is a technique by which the flow of single electron can be controlled and hence it requires very less amount of power consumption [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. This device, in general, consists of three metallic electrodes i.e.…”

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confidence: 99%

First Principles Calculations of Carbon-Nanotube and Boron-Nanotube Based Single Electron Transistors

Chauhan

Verma

2020

EEJP

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Low power consumption, small device size and better controlled onto the charge carriers are the factors, that made Single-electron transistor (SET) a suitable candidate for molecular electronics; yet there are some improvements that can be done in order to use it practically. The single electron transistor (SET) operates through the tunnelling of electron via two tunnel junctions. Choosing a suitable island material plays a key role in the tunnelling of electron through the tunnel junctions. In the present work, the First principle calculations of carbon-nanotube and boron-nanotube based Single-Electron Transistors have been performed. The three types of configurations of nanotubes i.e. zigzag (5,0), armchair (3,3) and chiral (4,2), of the smallest possible diameter (approximately 4A ),have been used. The calculations have been carried out using Atomistic toolkit (ATK-VNL) simulation package which is a density functional theory (DFT) based package. In the present work, local density approximations (LDA) as well as generalized gradient approximation(GGA) have been used to demonstrate the properties of nanotubes-based SET. These approaches have been implemented for a nanotube that is lying just above the gate dielectric. On the either side of the dielectric the electrodes are present, source in the left and drain in the right. The metallic electrodes made of gold (W=5.28eV) and the dielectric material of the dielectric constant have been used. The charging energies and additional energies of both types of nanotubes-based SET in the isolated as well as in the electrostatic environment have been calculated using the approximations. The calculated values of the charging energies in the electrostatic environment have been found to be less than the charging energies in isolated configuration that shows the renormalization of molecular energy levels. Variations of total energies against gate voltages and Charge stability diagrams (CSD) have been discussed.

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Sensing of single electrons using micro and nano technologies: a review

Cited by 30 publications

References 105 publications

Room-Temperature Sensing of Single Electrons Using Vibrating-Reed Electrometer in Silicon-on-Glass Technology

Room-Temperature Sensing of Single Electrons Using Vibrating-Reed Electrometer in Silicon-on-Glass Technology

MEMS Variable Area Capacitor for Room Temperature Electrometry

First Principles Calculations of Carbon-Nanotube and Boron-Nanotube Based Single Electron Transistors

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