High-accuracy current generation in the nanoampere regime from a silicon single-trap electron pump

• DOI: 10.1038/srep45137
• Publication Date: 2017-03-21T16:26:19Z
• Authors: Gento Yamahata; Stephen P. Giblin; Masaya Kataoka; Takeshi Karasawa; Akira Fujiwara
• Keywords: 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; Article

AbstractA gigahertz single-electron (SE) pump with a semiconductor charge island is promising for a future quantum current standard. However, high-accuracy current in the nanoampere regime is still difficult to achieve because the performance of SE pumps tends to degrade significantly at frequencies exceeding 1 GHz. Here, we demonstrate robust SE pumping via a single-trap level in silicon up to 7.4 GHz, at which the pumping current exceeds 1 nA. An accuracy test with an uncertainty of about one part per million (ppm) reveals that the pumping current deviates from the ideal value by only about 20 ppm at the flattest part of the current plateau. This value is two orders of magnitude better than the best one reported in the nanoampere regime. In addition, the pumping accuracy is almost unchanged up to 7.4 GHz, probably due to strong electron confinement in the trap. These results indicate that trap-mediated SE pumping is promising for achieving the practical operation of the quantum current standard.