The effect of thermal annealing on the properties of Al-AlOx-Al single electron tunneling transistors

Abstract

The effect of thermal annealing on the properties of Al-AlOx-Al single electron tunneling transistors is reported. After treatment of the devices by annealing processes in forming gas atmosphere at different temperatures and for different times, distinct and reproducible changes of their resistance and capacitance values were found. According to the temperature regime, we observed different behaviors as regards the resistance changes, namely the tendency to decrease the resistance by annealing at T = 200 degree C, but to increase the resistance by annealing at T = 400 degree C. We attribute this behavior to changes in the aluminum oxide barriers of the tunnel junctions. The good reproducibility of these effects with respect to the changes observed allows the proper annealing treatment to be used for post-process tuning of tunnel junction parameters. Also, the influence of the annealing treatment on the noise properties of the transistors at low frequency was investigated. In no case did the noise figures in the 1/f-regime show significant changes.