Noise-Induced Leakage and Counting Errors in the Electron Pump

Published

December 15, 2000

Author(s)

Richard L. Kautz, Mark W. Keller, John M. Martinis

Abstract

Computer simulations reveal that the lowest rates of leakage and counting errors observed in the electron pump can be explained by photon-assisted tunneling driven by 1/f noise. The noise power at microwave frequencies required to account for the observed errors is consistent with extrapolation of the low-frequency noise spectrum commonly recorded in single-electron transistors. Pump simulations, based on the ground-capacitance model, include cotunneling as well as single-junction photon-assisted tunneling. Quantitative agreement between theory and experiment is obtained for leakage and counting errors in pumps with four, five, six, and seven junctions in the limit of low temperatures and low counting rates. The effect of self-hearing is explored.

Citation

Physical Review B

Volume

62

Issue

23

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

capacitance standard, electron counting, electron pump, noise, photon-assisted tunneling, self heating, single electronics, single-electron transistor

Citation

Kautz, R. , Keller, M. and Martinis, J. (2000), Noise-Induced Leakage and Counting Errors in the Electron Pump, Physical Review B, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=18462 (Accessed October 11, 2025)