Nanopillar transistors exhibiting single-electron quantum effects at room temperature

A nanoelectronic device consisting of a SiNx/Si/SiNx nanopillar and a side electrical gate has been assembled to display single-electron resonance tunneling and Coulomb modulation at 300 K. The device features an ultrasmall quantum dot of size similar to 10x10x3 nm(3) and its manufacture is fully silicon processing compatible. We find a simple guideline to derive the gate-dot coupling strength alpha by comparison of the peak spacing in the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of I-d-V-d and I-d-V-g at low voltage. The better-defined quantum cavity enables us to apply a three-dimensional single-particle model to identify the excited quantum states. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.