Coulomb blockade in PtSi/porous Si Schottky barrier as a two-dimensional multi-tunnelling junction

Abstract

The authors report on Coulomb blockade effect in the PtSi/porous Si Schottky barrier. A model of two-dimensional multi-tunnelling junction (2D-MTJ) can explain the blockade characteristic of this barrier. Using the SIMON simulator, the electrical characteristics of the proposed model were investigated. The results show that simulated current–voltage curves achieve a reasonable fit with the measured data and the present model can be used to study the PtSi/porous Si Schottky barrier behaviour. In accordance with both the studies, Coulomb blockade phenomenon is observed in current oscillation and single-electron effect of this device at low temperatures (5 K) is justified using the 2D-MTJ model. In addition, it indicates that by increasing the current value with temperature and for high drain voltages, PtSi/porous Si Schottky barrier behaves like a single island single-electron tunnelling (SET) junction as previously reported by Raissi et al.