Room-temperature observation of a Coulomb blockade phenomenon in aluminum nanodots fabricated by an electrochemical process

An aluminum nanodot was self-organized between two electrodes using the anodization process of an aluminum microelectrode of 3 mu m in width. The authors observed a clear Coulomb staircase with a very large Coulomb energy of about 2 eV at room temperature. This very large Coulomb energy is attributed to the device structure which depends strongly on the aluminum nanodot formation mechanism. The authors' results indicate that a single electron transistor operating at room temperature can be fabricated at an appropriate position using both bottom-up and top-down processes. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.