Single-electron tunneling dynamics in a turnstile designed with asymmetrictunnel barriers

A simple analytical solution to the potential energy which an electron feel s when tunneling through an ultrasmall tunnel capacitor in mesoscopic circu its in the semiclassical regime is presented. An effect of induced charges (image charges) on the plates of the tunnel capacitors when an electron is transferred from one plate to the other is taken into account. The derived expression for the potential energy of a tunneling electron is used to anal yze a transport property of a turnstile designed with four identical tunnel barriers whose energy profiles are asymmetric, such tunnel barriers are ca lled asymmetric tunnel barriers (ATBs). This turnstile is expected to show the zero-bias current due to synergism of the ATB nature, i.e., the rectifi cation effect, and the turnstile effect when a periodic signal is applied t o its gate. The image force is found to have a significant rule on the sing le-electron traffic in mesoscopic devices/circuits especially involving ATB s. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.