Characterization of aluminum oxide tunnel barriers by combining transport measurements and transmission electron microscopy imaging

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Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Science | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
Date
2014
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
073702/1-4
Series
Journal of Applied Physics, Volume 116, Issue 7
Abstract
We present two approaches for studying the uniformity of a tunnel barrier. The first approach is based on measuring single-electron and two-electron tunneling in a hybrid single-electron transistor. Our measurements indicate that the effective area of a conduction channel is about one order of magnitude larger than predicted by theoretical calculations. With the second method, transmission electron microscopy, we demonstrate that variations in the barrier thickness are a plausible explanation for the larger effective area and an enhancement of higher order tunneling processes.
Description
Keywords
transmission electron microscopy, tunneling, aluminium, copper, tunnel junctions, SET, TEM
Citation
Aref, T. & Averin, A. & van Dijken, S. & Ferring, A. & Koberidze, M. & Maisi, V. F. & Nguyend, H. Q. & Nieminen, R. M. & Pekola, Jukka & Yao, L. D. 2014. Characterization of aluminum oxide tunnel barriers by combining transport measurements and transmission electron microscopy imaging. Journal of Applied Physics. Volume 116, Issue 7. 073702/1-4. ISSN 0021-8979 (printed). DOI: 10.1063/1.4893473.