Low temperature tunneling transistor

摘要

The transistor comprises two electrodes, source (12) and drain (13), with a semiconductor tunnel channel (11) arranged therebetween. A gate (14) for applying control signals is coupled to the channel. The semiconductor, at low temperatures, behaves like an insulator with a low barrier (some meV) through which charge carriers can tunnel under the influence of an applied drain voltage. The tunnel current can be controlled by a gate voltage VG which modifies the barrier height between source and drain thereby changing the tunnel probability.