Observing sub-microsecond telegraph noise with the radio frequency single electron transistor

Telegraph noise, which originates from the switching of charge between metastable trapping sites, becomes increasingly important as device sizes approach the nanoscale. For charge-based quantum computing, this noise may lead to decoherence and loss of readout fidelity. Here we use a radio frequency single electron transistor (rf-SET) to probe the telegraph noise present in a typical semiconductor-based quantum computer architecture. We frequently observe microsecond telegraph noise, which is a strong function of the local electrostatic potential defined by surface gate biases. We present a method for studying telegraph noise using the rf-SET and show results for a charge trap in which the capture and emission of a single electron is controlled by the bias applied to a surface gate. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.