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arXiv:cond-mat/0602518 · Journal of Applied Physics

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 Dec 1, 2006• 73 citations
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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.

DOI
10.1063/1.2388134

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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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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.
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