We present an experimental demonstration of a latch in a clocked quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) device. The device consists of three floating micron-size metal dots, connected in series by multiple tunnel junctions and controlled by capacitively coupled gates. The middle dot acts as an adjustable barrier to control single-electron tunneling between end dots. The position of a switching electron in the half cell is detected by a single-electron electrometer. We demonstrate “latching” of a single electron in the end dots controlled by the gate connected to the middle dot. This ability to lock an electron in a controllable way enables pipelining, power gain and reduced power dissipation in QCA arrays.
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In this process single electron is transferred from the middle dot to the end dot to which positive polarity of the input voltage is applied. As a result of this transfer, D2 is missing one electron. For further details on the phase plots, see Ref. 7.
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Such signal is caused, for example, by the changing polarization in the adjacent half cell activated by a separate clock line.
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© 2001 American Institute of Physics.
2001
American Institute of Physics
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