Room-temperature-operating data processing circuit based on single-electron transfer and detection with metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor technology

A single-electron-based circuit, in which electrons are transferred one by one with a turnstile and subsequently detected with a high-charge-sensitivity electrometer, was fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. The turnstile, which is operated by opening and closing two metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors alternately, allows single-electron transfer at room temperature owing to electric-field-assisted shrinkage of the single-electron box. It also achieves fast single-electron transfer (less than 10 ns) and extremely long retention (more than 10(4) s). We have applied these features to a multilevel memory and a time-division weighted sum circuit for a digital-to-analog converter. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.