A two-atom electron pump

Abstract

With the development of single-atom transistors, consisting of single dopants, nanofabrication has reached an extreme level of miniaturization. Promising functionalities for future nanoelectronic devices are based on the possibility of coupling several of these dopants to each other. This already allowed to perform spectroscopy of the donor state by d.c. electrical transport. The next step, namely manipulating a single electron over two dopants, remains a challenge. Here we demonstrate electron pumping through two phosphorus donors in series implanted in a silicon nanowire. While quantized pumping is achieved in the low-frequency adiabatic regime, we observe remarkable features at higher frequency when the charge transfer is limited either by the tunnelling rates to the electrodes or between the two donors. The transitions between quantum states are modelled involving a Landau–Zener transition, allowing to reproduce in detail the characteristic signatures observed in the non-adiabatic regime. Transistors that operate by the passage of electrons through a single-dopant atom achieve the ultimate limit for the miniaturization of electronic devices, but only when multiple transistors are intimately connected can they become useful. Roche et al. demonstrate the equivalent of just this, connecting two such transistors to build a two-atom electron pump.