On the Single Electron Transistor

Abstract

Due to the fundamental size limitations of the transistor, single electron transistor (SET) has been playing an important role in nano technology and attracting researchers’ interests. It has been demonstrated that, whereas a conventional transistor turns on only once as electrons are added to it, submicron size transistors, isolated from their leads by tunnel junctions, turn on and off again every time an electron is added. This unusual behavior is primarily the result of the quantization of charge and the Coulomb interaction between electrons on the small transistor. In this review paper, history, basic theories, and a few applications of single electron transistors are discussed to generate interest of young researchers in SET.