Room-temperature Al single-electron transistor made by electron-beam lithography

We present a lithographically made Al single-electron transistor that shows gate modulation at room temperature. The temperature dependence of the mod ulation agrees with the orthodox theory, however, energy-level quantization in a tiny metallic island affects the device characteristics below 30 K. T he charge-equivalent noise of the device at 300 K was measured to be simila r to 4x10(-2) e/Hz(1/2) at 1 Hz and is expected to be 1000 times lower in t he white-noise regime at higher frequencies. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)01416-9].