Coulomb staircase in STM current through granular films

Citation
H. Imamura et al., Coulomb staircase in STM current through granular films, PHYS REV B, 61(1), 2000, pp. 46-49
Citations number
20
Categorie Soggetti
Apllied Physucs/Condensed Matter/Materiales Science
Journal title
PHYSICAL REVIEW B
ISSN journal
10980121 → ACNP
Volume
61
Issue
1
Year of publication
2000
Pages
46 - 49
Database
ISI
SICI code
1098-0121(20000101)61:1<46:CSISCT>2.0.ZU;2-F
Abstract
The tunneling current through a junction array consisting of a scanning tun neling microscope tip and a granular film is studied both theoretically and experimentally. When the tunnel resistance between the tip and a granule o n the surface is much larger than those between granules, a bottleneck of t he tunneling current is created in the array and the Coulomb staircase (CS) appears in the I-V curve at room temperature. It is shown that the period of the CS is given by the capacitance at the bottleneck even though a granu lar film consists of many tunnel junctions with different capacitances. Our study provides a possibility for single-electron-spin-electronic devices a t room temperature.