Title: Role of impurities in GaAs affecting the quantisation of electrons passage through island in single electron transistor

Authors: S. Abdalla, W. El-Shirbeeny

Addresses: Medical Physics Division Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80205, Jeddah 21589, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ' Medical Physics Division Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80205, Jeddah 21589, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract: We show that the presence of inevitable impurities in the semi-insulating GaAs domains when manufacturing a single electron transistor (SET) alters the quantisation mechanism of the single electron tunnelling through its course inside the island. Moreover, these impurities affect the amount of energy needed to change the number of electrons on the island. This decreases drastically the quality of the SET. The published experimental data (I-V characteristics) of GaAs nano-crystals has been well fitted to our model.

Keywords: single electron transistors; SET; impurity potential; impurities; charge quantisation; semi-insulating GaAs; gallium arsenide; nanocrystals; nanotechnology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNP.2009.028785

International Journal of Nanoparticles, 2009 Vol.2 No.1/2/3/4/5/6, pp.490-496

Published online: 30 Sep 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article