Rights statement: © 2013 American Physical Society
Final published version, 6.78 MB, PDF document
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Single-electron current sources
T2 - toward a refined definition of the ampere
AU - Pekola, Jukka P.
AU - Saira, O. -P.
AU - Maisi, Ville F.
AU - Kemppinen, A.
AU - Möttönen , Mikko
AU - Pashkin, Yuri
AU - Averin, D. V.
N1 - © 2013 American Physical Society
PY - 2013/10/2
Y1 - 2013/10/2
N2 - The control electrons at the level of the elementary charge e was demonstrated experimentally already in the 1980s. Ever since, the production of an electrical current ef, or its integer multiple, at a drive frequency f has been in a focus of research for metrological purposes.This review discusses the generic physical phenomena and technical constraints that influence single-electron charge transport and presents a broad variety of proposed realizations. Some of them have already proven experimentally to nearly fulfill the demanding needs, in terms of transfer errors and transfer rate, of quantum metrology of electrical quantities, whereas some others are currently ‘‘just’’ wild ideas, still oftenpotentially competitive if technical constraints can be lifted. The important issues of readout of singleelectron events and potential error correction schemes based on them are also discussed. Finally, an account is given of the status of single-electron current sources in the bigger framework of electricquantum standards and of the future international SI system of units, and applications and uses of single-electron devices outside the metrological context are briefly discussed.
AB - The control electrons at the level of the elementary charge e was demonstrated experimentally already in the 1980s. Ever since, the production of an electrical current ef, or its integer multiple, at a drive frequency f has been in a focus of research for metrological purposes.This review discusses the generic physical phenomena and technical constraints that influence single-electron charge transport and presents a broad variety of proposed realizations. Some of them have already proven experimentally to nearly fulfill the demanding needs, in terms of transfer errors and transfer rate, of quantum metrology of electrical quantities, whereas some others are currently ‘‘just’’ wild ideas, still oftenpotentially competitive if technical constraints can be lifted. The important issues of readout of singleelectron events and potential error correction schemes based on them are also discussed. Finally, an account is given of the status of single-electron current sources in the bigger framework of electricquantum standards and of the future international SI system of units, and applications and uses of single-electron devices outside the metrological context are briefly discussed.
U2 - 10.1103/RevModPhys.85.1421
DO - 10.1103/RevModPhys.85.1421
M3 - Journal article
VL - 85
SP - 1421
EP - 1472
JO - Reviews of Modern Physics
JF - Reviews of Modern Physics
SN - 0034-6861
IS - 4
ER -