ABSTRACT
The fabrication of large-scale, reproducible nanogap electrodes is a key issue for the integration of nanoscale devices such as single-electron transistors (SETs). SETs have been studied extensively because of their potential advantages in high integration density and low power consumption. There are many experimental reports on the fabrication techniques of metallic SETs, based on nanogaps with randomly placed nanoparticles [1–5]. However, it is almost impossible to control the position of islands of SETs using these fabrication techniques. On the other hand, highly elaborate shadow evaporation [6,7] and scanning probe microscope (SPM)-based oxidation [8,9] have also been reported, and the fabrication methods have achieved a high-temperature operation of SETs. However, it is known that these approaches are complicated and require special techniques and systems.
