Temperature behavior of multiple tunnel junction devices based on disordered dot arrays

Nanometer-sized multijunction arrays are expected to exhibit a large Coulomb blockade effect. However, up to now, only highly disordered arrays can be fabricated. In this article, we evaluate the consequences of disorder on the dispersion of the device characteristics. We show that, as observed for regular arrays, the threshold voltage V-th increases with the length of the multijunction array. At very low temperature, the V-th dispersion is small. Conversely, at higher temperature, a large dispersion in V-th is observed. We evidence the importance of the different array parameters with respect to the device characteristics. We show that the crucial parameters are the tunnel resistances and, therefore, for a two-dimensional array, the total resistance of the minimal resistance path is the most relevant parameter. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021- 8979(00)05701-7].