A single electron device and circuit simulator with a new algorithm to incorporate co-tunneling

Abstract

Introduces a single electron device and circuit simulator for the investigation of devices and circuits consisting of tunnel junctions, capacitors, constant voltage sources, piecewise linear voltage sources and voltage controlled voltage sources. The simulator features a new algorithm to incorporate the quantum mechanical effect of co-tunneling. The basic simulation method is to calculate tunnel rates for all possible tunnel events starting from a particular state (charge distribution) of the circuit. These tunnel rates strongly depend on the change in free energy, of the whole circuit. Every system tends to a state of lower energy and therefore tunnel events that lower the free energy are more likely to happen.