Electron transport in physically-defined double quantum dots on a highly doped silicon-on-insulator substrate

Abstract

We study electron transport in physically-defined silicon quantum dots (QDs) on a highly doped silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. We show that the QDs can be obtained as designed without unintentional localized states caused by fluctuating dopant potentials even when a highly doped SOI substrate is used. We observe the single electron tunneling phenomena both in the single QDs (SQDs) and in the double QDs (DQDs). The charging energy in the SQDs is ∼18 meV as estimated from the Coulomb diamond. This enables us to further estimate that the diameter of the SQDs is ∼35 nm, which is consistent with the designed fabrication specifications if the voltage condition is taken into account. A change of the charged state in the DQDs is detected using the SQD as a charge sensor. A periodic honeycomb-like charge stability diagram is obtained, which indicates that we achieved the fabrication of DQDs without unintentional localized states.