Fabrication method for IC-oriented Si single-electron transistors

A new fabrication method for Si single-electron transistors (SET's) is proposed. The method applies thermal oxidation to a Si wire with a fine trench across it on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. During the oxidation, the Si wire with the fine trench is converted, in a self-organized manner, into a twin SET structure with two single-electron islands, one along each edge of the trench, due to position-dependent oxidation-rate modulation caused by stress accumulation. Test devices demonstrated, at 40K, that the twin SET structure can operate as two individual SET's. Since the present method produces two SET's at the same time in a tiny area, it is suitable for integrating logic circuits based on pass-transistor-type logic and CMOS-type logic, which promises to lead to the fabrication of single-electron logic LSI's.