Reduction of the threshold voltage dispersion in nanometer-sized arrays showing Coulomb blockade

Until now, the tunnel multijunctions (based on arrays of nanometer-size met allic dots on a SiO2 substrate) are the only devices that are able to contr ol single electrons while remaining compatible with the silicon technology. There are, however, two serious drawbacks. First, the position and size of the dots are not accurately controllable, and therefore the arrays are nec essarily highly disordered. Secondly, only 2D arrays can be produced with a high yield. This leads to a large dispersion of the critical electrical pa rameters, especially the threshold voltage V-th in the useful high temperat ure ran-c. For any large scale integration application, the dispersion shou ld definitely be much smaller than 10%. By a numerical simulation of random sets of devices, we will show there that the design proposal previously ma de by us allows a drastic reduction of the V-th dispersion in these highly disordered arrays. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All fights reserved.