Experimental demonstration of hybrid CMOS-single electron transistor circuits

Abstract

This article presents a proof-of-concept integration of single electron transistors (SETs) and CMOS devices on a single substrate. Two different complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) voltage amplifiers were designed and fabricated for SET readout: a p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor (PMOS) linear amplifier with off-chip source and drain resistors, and a CMOS inverter, which provides gain with no external components. In both cases, the amplifier was coupled to a SET situated on the same substrate and tested at 1.1 K. The amplifiers must have minimal power dissipation to avoid overheating of the SET. Testing of both the linear and CMOS amplifiers demonstrated amplification of the voltage output of an SET/resistor voltage divider. Coulomb blockade of current in the I-V characteristic of SET and Coulomb blockade oscillations were observed with these amplifiers, demonstrating proof-of-concept of the use of CMOS and SETs together. This may enable future integration of CMOS technology with quantum-dot cellular automata or other novel device and logic types that use SETs for readout.