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Science 17 January 1992:
Vol. 255. no. 5042, pp. 313 - 315
DOI: 10.1126/science.255.5042.313
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Articles

Observation of Single-Electron Charging in Double-Barrier Heterostructures

BO SU 1, V. J. GOLDMAN 1, and J. E. CUNNINGHAM 2

1 Department of Physics, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3800
2 AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ 07733

Incremental single-electron charging of size-quantized states has been observed in the well in submicrometer double-barrier resonant tunneling devices. In order to distinguish between the effects of size quantization and the single-electron charging, the heterostructure material was grown asymmetrical so that one barrier is substantially less transparent than the other. In the voltage polarity such that the emitter barrier is more transparent than the collector barrier, electrons accumulate in the well; incremental electron occupation of the well is accompanied by Coulomb blockade, which leads to sharp steps of the tunneling current. In the opposite voltage polarity the emitter barrier is less transparent than the collector barrier and the tunneling current reflects resonant tunneling through size-quantized well states.

Submitted on September 26, 1991
Accepted on December 9, 1991


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Molecular Electronics Special Feature: Tunneling rates in electron transport through double-barrier molecular junctions in a scanning tunneling microscope.
G. V. Nazin, S. W. Wu, and W. Ho (2005)
PNAS 102, 8832-8837
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