Quantum mechanical tunnelling in nanoelectronic circuits: Design of a nanoelectronic single-electron RAM

Abstract

Single-electronics is a nanoelectronic technology that makes possible the control of transport and position of a single or a small number of electrons. The fundamental physical principles of single-electronics are the quantum mechanical tunnelling and the Coulomb blockade. Bits of information are represented by the presence or absence of a single or a small number of electrons in conducting islands. The design and operation of two basic single-electron gates and the basic memory cell are presented. Furthermore, a single-electron random-access memory array is designed and its operation is analyzed using Monte Carlo simulation. Simulation shows that selective read and write operations can be performed in this memory array.