Variance analysis of the Coulomb blockade parameters in nanometer-size disordered arrays

Recently, Coulomb blockade could be observed up to room temperature on devi ces with arrays. As they are highly disordered, an important dispersion of the electrical characteristics is expected. We calculate the dispersion of the Coulomb blockade threshold voltage V-th, for disordered arrays. At very low temperature, V-th increases with the array size, as well for one-dimen sional (1D) as for two-dimensional (2D) arrays, and the relative dispersion remains smaller than 10%. Such a promising behavior does not hold at highe r temperatures. On one hand, a larger gain in V-th with the array size is o nly obtained on 1D arrays. On the other one, the dispersion rapidly becomes catastrophic for both 1D and 2D cases. We propose a way to reduce it to a range of 10%-15%, almost compatible with very large scale integration appli cations. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.