Noise measurements on single electron transistors using bias switching read-out

¹ Low Temperature Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, PO Box 2200, 02015 Espoo HUT, Finland
² VTT Automation, Measurement Technology, PO Box 1304, 02044 VTT, Finland

Corresponding author: pjh@neuro.hut.fi

Received: 1 March 2000
Revised: 13 August 2000
Accepted: 13 August 2000
Published online: 15 September 2000

Abstract

We present a simple bias reversal technique for single electron transistors (SET) to remove fluctuations of tunneling resistance from the read-out signal at low frequencies. The gain of the device is kept constant under bias reversal by using asymmetric junction capacitances. In our Al/AlO_x/Al devices with 1.2 μm island size and 100 × 100 nm² tunnel junctions, the noise at 10 Hz is , independent of the bias modulation.