Intrinsic noise of a micro-mechanical displacement detector based on the radio-frequency single-electron transistor

A theoretical analysis of the charge sensitivity of the RF-SET is presented. We use the ``orthodox'' approach and consider the case when the carrier frequency is much less than $I/e$ where $I$ is the typical current through RF-SET. The optimized noise-limited sensitivity is determined by the temperature $T$, and at low $T$ it is only 1.4 times less than the sensitivity of conventional single-electron transistor.

A single-electron transistor (SET) can be used as an extremely sensitive charge detector. Mechanical displacements can be converted into charge, and hence, SETs can become sensitive detectors of mechanical oscillations. For studying small-energy oscillations, an important approach to realize the mechanical resonators is to use piezoelectric materials. Besides coupling to traditional electric circuitry, the strain-generated piezoelectric charge allows for measuring ultrasmall ...

We report on measurements of low frequency noise in a single electron transistor from a few Hz up to 10 MHz. Measurements were done for different bias and gate voltages, which allows us to separate noise contributions from different noise sources. We find a 1/f noise spectrum with two Lorentzians superimposed. The cut-off frequency of one of the Lorentzians varies systematically with the potential of the SET island. Our data is consistent with two single-charge fluctuators si...

Graphene-based electromechanical resonators have attracted much interest recently because of the outstanding mechanical and electrical properties of graphene and their various applications. However, the coupling between mechanical motion and charge transport has not been explored in graphene. Here, we studied the mechanical properties of a suspended 50-nm-wide graphene nanoribbon, which also acts as a single-electron transistor (SET) at low temperature. Using the SET as a sen...

We present results on a double-island single-electron transistor (DISET) operated at radio-frequency (rf) for fast and highly sensitive detection of charge motion in the solid state. Using an intuitive definition for the charge sensitivity, we compare a DISET to a conventional single-electron transistor (SET). We find that a DISET can be more sensitive than a SET for identical, minimum device resistances in the Coulomb blockade regime. This is of particular importance for rf ...

We have systematically measured the shot noise in a single electron transistor (SET) as a function of bias and gate voltages. By embedding a SET in a resonance circuit we have been able to measure its shot noise at the resonance frequency 464 MHz, where the 1/f noise is negligible. We can extract the Fano factor which varies between 0.5 and 1 depending on the amount of Coulomb blockade in the SET, in very good agreement with the theory.

The current noise spectrum of a single-electron transistor (SET) coupled to a nano-mechanical resonator is calculated in the classical regime. Correlations between the charge on the SET island and the position of the resonator give rise to a distinctive noise spectrum which can be very different from that of the uncoupled SET. The current noise spectrum of the coupled system contains peaks at both the frequency of the resonator and double the resonator frequency, as well as a...

We evaluate the detector nonideality (and energy sensitivity) of a normal-state single-electron transistor (SET) in the cotunneling regime in a two-charge-state approximation. For small conductances and at zero temperature, the SET's performance as a charge-qubit readout device is characterized by a universal one-parameter function. The result shows that near-ideal, quantum-limited measurement is possible for a wide range of small bias voltages. However, near the threshold vo...

We have analyzed numerically the response and noise-limited charge sensitivity of a radio-frequency single-electron transistor (RF-SET) in a non-superconducting state using the orthodox theory. In particular, we have studied the performance dependence on the quality factor Q of the tank circuit for Q both below and above the value corresponding to the impedance matching between the coaxial cable and SET.

The radio frequency single electron transistor (rf-SET) possesses key requirements necessary for reading out a solid state quantum computer. This work explores the use of the rf-SET as a single-shot readout device in the presence of 1/f and telegraph charge noise. For a typical spectrum of 1/f noise we find that high fidelity, single-shot measurements are possible for signals q > 0.01e. For the case of telegraph noise, we present a cross-correlation measurement technique that...