Line Widths of Single-Electron Tunneling Oscillations: Experiment and Numerical Simulations

Abstract

We present experimental and numerical results from a real-time detection of time-correlated single-electron tunneling oscillations in a one-dimensional series array of small tunnel junctions. The electrons tunnel with a frequency f=I/e, where I is the current and e is the electron charge. Experimentally, we have connected a single-electron transistor to the last array island, and in this way measured currents from 5 fA to 1 pA by counting the single electrons. We find that the line width of the oscillation is proportional to the frequency f. The experimental data agrees well with numerical simulations.

2 pages, 1 figure. Submitted to the 24th International Conference on Low Temperature Physics (LT24), Orlando, FL, USA, Aug. 2005; to be published in the AIP Conference Proceedings series