Operation of single-walled carbon nanotube as a radio-frequency single-electron transistor

We demonstrate the operation of a radio-frequency single-electron transistor (RF-SET) using single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). The device is embedded in a resonant tank circuit and operates in reflection mode at temperatures as high as 5 K. Both frequency domain and time domain results are presented. With a gate modulation frequency of 1 MHz, a charge sensitivity of ∼4.78 × 10−4e/Hz−1/2 is obtained, which is limited by the large parasitic capacitance between the gate and the source/drain pads. Through the use of a top-gated configuration with reduced parasitic capacitance, both the RF performance and the charge sensitivity can be significantly improved.