Review analysis of single-electron transistor

Abstract

In this paper, the results of the study of single-electron transistor have been summarized. The advancements in fabrication technology established by the well-known Moore’s law had come to a standstill until the idea of using a single electron for operations came into effect. This single-electron transistor is a great revolution in research in nanotechnology. It uses a nanoscale island of charges called quantum dot for conductance and uses principles of ‘Coulomb Blockade’, single-electron tunneling effect. This allows miniaturization of circuits, reduced power consumption, high operating speed. These characteristics permit its application in various areas such as memory device industry, metrology. However, it has some fabrication issues which have not been fixed yet. At room temperature, a sub-nanometer island size is required for proper functioning and obtaining a good control over nanoparticle size is challenging. A comparison between SET and other conventional transistors has also been made.