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An ultrasensitive radio-frequency single-electron transistor working up to 4.2 K

Henrik Brenning, Sergey G. Kafanov, T. Duty, Sergey Kubatkin, Per Delsing

Published Jan 1, 2006• 51 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We present the measurement of a radio-frequency single-electron transistor that displays a very high charge sensitivity of 1.9 μe Hz at 4.2 K. At 40 mK, the charge sensitivity is 0.9 and 1.0 μe Hz in the superconducting and normal state, respectively. The sensitivity was measured as a function of radio frequency amplitude at three different temperatures; 40 mK, 1.8, and 4.2 K.

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Physical Review Letters•Apr 9, 2001•218 citations
We present the measurement of a radio-frequency single-electron transistor that displays a very high charge sensitivity of 1.9 μe Hz at 4.2 K. At 40 mK, the charge sensitivity is 0.9 and 1.0 μe Hz in the superconducting and normal state, respectively. The sensitivity was measured as a function of radio frequency amplitude at three different temperatures; 40 mK, 1.8, and 4.2 K.
We demonstrate the use of the single-electron transistor as a radio-frequency mixer, based on the nonlinear dependence of current on gate charge. This mixer can be used for high-frequency, ultrasensitive charge measurements over a broad and tunable range of frequencies. We demonstrate operation of the mixer, using a lithographically defined thin-film aluminum transistor, in both the superconducting and normal states of aluminum, over frequencies from 10 to 300 MHz. We have operated the device both as a homodyne detector and as a phase-sensitive heterodyne mixer. We demonstrate a charge sensitivity of <4×10−3 e/Hz, limited by room-temperature electronics. An optimized mixer has a theoretical charge sensitivity of ≲1.5×10−5 e/Hz.
A new type of electrometer is described that uses a single-electron transistor (SET) and that allows large operating speeds and extremely high charge sensitivity. The SET readout was accomplished by measuring the damping of a 1.7-gigahertz resonant circuit in which the device is embedded, and in some ways is the electrostatic "dual" of the well-known radio-frequency superconducting quantum interference device. The device is more than two orders of magnitude faster than previous single-electron devices, with a constant gain from dc to greater than 100 megahertz. For a still-unoptimized device, a charge sensitivity of 1.2 x 10(-5) e/hertz was obtained at a frequency of 1.1 megahertz, which is about an order of magnitude better than a typical, 1/f-noise-limited SET, and corresponds to an energy sensitivity (in joules per hertz) of about 41 Planck's over 2pi.
We have fabricated an aluminum single-electron transistor and characterized it at frequencies up to 10 MHz by measuring the reflected signal from a resonant tank in which the transistor is embedded. We measured the charge sensitivity of this radio-frequency single-electron transistor to be 3.2×10−6 e/Hz, which corresponds to the uncoupled energy sensitivity of 4.8 ℏ. Our measurements indicate that with further improvements, the radio-frequency single-electron transistor could reach the shot-noise limit estimated to be about 1 ℏ.
This thesis will discuss the principles, techniques and applications of the Radio Frequency Single Electron Transistor (RF-SET). In the first part, the operating principles of Single Electron Transistors (SETS) in the normal and superconducting states will be introduced. The general techniques of fabricating and calibrating SETs will also be introduced. In the second part, two of our recent experiments are reviewed. One is related to the sensitivity and linearity of superconducting RF-SETs. We found that the RF-SET achieves the best balance of charge sensitivity and linearity in the subgap regime, as opposed to the usual preferred working point in the above-gap regime. The second experiment relates to the real-time counting of single electrons. We demonstrated that the RF-SET can be used as a fast and ultra-sensitive electrometer which can even detect tunneling of a single electron inside a tunable quantum dot (QD) formed in a two dimensional electron gas (2DEG).
We study the radio-frequency single-electron transistor (rf-SET) as a readout device for charge qubits. We measure the charge sensitivity of an rf-SET to be 6.3microe/sqrt[Hz] and evaluate the backaction of the rf-SET on a single Cooper-pair box. This allows us to compare the needed measurement time with the mixing time of the qubit imposed by the measurement. We find that the mixing time can be substantially longer than the measurement time, which would allow readout of the state of the qubit in a single shot measurement.