Design of a Single-Electron Memory Operating at Room Temperature

Single-electronic transistors (SETs) are considered as the attractive component for the next generation of transistors due to their ultrasmall size and low power consumption. Because SETs with single island cannot work at high temperature normally, more researchers begin to carry out research on the SETs with N-dimension multi-islands. In this paper, we introduce a new architecture of single-electron memory; ideally the memory should operate in combination of SETs with a nanowire of two-dimensional regular array of multiple tunnel junctions (MTJs). This structure is analyzed and studied with Monte Carlo simulator, SIMON. The Coulomb blockade effect and thermionic effect play an important role in carrier conduction in the system at room temperature. Nanowire MTJs are used as an electrometer to sense the memory-node charge. The well-defined parameter in tunnel junction circuits helps to obtain the charging of single electrons in these circuits at room temperature. 1. Introduction Single-electron devices (SEDs), which consist of at least one small conductive dot, are based on the so-called Coulomb blockade. If an electron tries to enter a small isolated region, the electrostatic energy of the region would increase; thus the electron cannot enter if the charging energy is larger than the thermal energy , where is the island capacitance, is the temperature, is the elementary charge, and is the Boltzmann constant. Their great advantages are their small size than being more highly integrated and low power consumption. Since the operating temperature of an SET is determined by the geometrical size of the island that should be as small as a few nanometers to operate at higher temperature, it presents a challenge to the modern nanofabrication technology. One of the most promising applications of single electronics is the single-electron memory [1] in digital electronics, where information “bits” are defined by one, or at most a few, electrons, has found great interest. The single-electron charging and quantum confinement effects into the quantum dot also lead to stored electrons. Operating cell with a precise number of electrons is by controlling the magnitude of the writing voltage. The criteria that a good single-electron memory cell must fulfill are the operation temperature, the bit error, power consumption, and the same time short read and write cycles. Robustness against random background charge is a prerequisite, and the SET device must be manufacturable with today’s technology. However, the principal problem is that the operation of a single-electron