Single-electronics

Ehsan Afshari (ehsan@caltech.edu)

 

Single-electron devices, in which it is possible to control the movement and position of a single or small number of electrons, have recently attracted much attention. The prospect of silicon transistors being replaced by single-electron devices in integrated circuits faces tough challenges and remains uncertain. Nevertheless, even if this replacement does not happen, single-electronics will continue to play an important role by shedding light on the fundamental size limitations of new electronic devices.

The advantages of these devices are as follows, First these devices operate with very small dimensions because this technology relies simply on the Coulomb repulsion among electrons, single-electron devices are anticipated to operate even with very small physical dimensions, such as atomic scale. Second advantage is ultra-low power operation because they use a few number of electrons. Third advantage is faster operation because only a few electrons are transferred. Last advantage is ultra-low noise operation. 

People normally use these devices in digital circuits (like memories and gates) or in sensors (the single-electron sensor is at least 1000 times better than specially designed low temperature semiconductor devices). Here in CHIC we are working on single-electron theory, single-electron devices modeling and designing a few analog circuits with this technology. Our primary goal is low power and low noise design and secondary goal is making high speed circuit. The good point of our research is that we use single-electron phenomena in our designs rather than replacement of single-electron devices with conventional CMOS devices.