Charging and heating effects in a system of coupled single-electron tunneling devices

The effects of interaction in systems of capacitively coupled Al single-electron transistors were studied. Employing one device carrying a small current as an electrometer we observed the suppression of its modulation characteristic by applying a substantially greater current to the neighboring transistor. This is explained by the combined action of charge oscillations and dissipated power in the transistor island (both caused by intensive single-electron tunneling) on the electrometer island. We demonstrate that by changing the parameters and mutual location of the interacting transistors on an SiOx substrate, the contribution of each effect can become dominant. [S0163-1829(99)0791 5-1].