Space-charge limited current in the single-electron regime - art. no. 195332

The current injected into a semiconducting thin film is space-charge limite d when the total number of electrons crossing per transit time is on the or der of CV/e. With nanoscale fabrication techniques it is possible, however, to make the capacitance so small that CV/e is on the order of 1. In this p aper we determine the properties of space-charge limited current in such a single-electron regime for a model of a molecular semiconductor for which c harge transport takes place by hopping. We discuss the similarities with Co ulomb blockade effects for a linear array of tunnel junctions between metal islands.