Silicon-charge-pump operation limit above and below liquid-helium temperature
Published in Physical Review Applied
Ajit Dash, Steve Yianni, MengKe Feng, Fay Hudson, Andre Saraiva, Andrew S Dzurak, Tuomo Tanttu
Abstract
Semiconductor tunable-barrier single-electron pumps can produce output current of hundreds of picoamperes at sub-parts-per-million precision, approaching the metrological requirement for the direct implementation of the current standard. Here we operate a silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor electron pump up to a temperature of 14 K to qualitatively understand the effect of temperature on charge-pumping accuracy. The uncertainty of the charge pump is tunnel limited below liquid-helium temperature, implying lowering the temperature further does not greatly suppress errors. Hence, highly accurate charge pumps could be achieved in a cryogenic system, further promoting use of the revised quantum current standard across national measurement institutes and industries worldwide.
