Single-electron transistors would represent an approach for less power consuming microelectronic devices if room-temperature operation and industry-compatible fabrication were possible. We present a concept based on stripes of small, self-assembled, colloidal, metal nanoparticles on a back-gate device architecture which leads to well-defined and well-controllable transistor characteristics. This Coulomb transistor has three main advantages: By employing the scalable Langmuir-Blodgett method we combine high-quality chemically synthesized metal nanoparticles with standard lithography techniques. The resulting transistors show on/off ratios above 90 %, reliable and sinusoidal Coulomb oscillations and room-temperature operation. Furthermore, this concept allows for versatile tuning of the device properties like Coulomb-energy gap, threshold voltage, as well as period, position and strength of the oscillations.
@article{arxiv.1707.04717,
title = {Metal nanoparticle film-based room temperature Coulomb transistor},
author = {Svenja Willing and Hauke Lehmann and Mirjam Volkmann and Christian Klinke},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.04717},
year = {2017}
}