Room-temperature Al single-electron transistor made by electron-beam lithography

We present a lithographically made Al single-electron transistor that shows gate modulation at room temperature. The temperature dependence of the modulation agrees with the orthodox theory, however, energy-level quantization in a tiny metallic island affects the device characteristics below 30 K. The charge-equivalent noise of the device at 300 K was measured to be ∼4×10−2 e/Hz1/2 at 1 Hz and is expected to be 1000 times lower in the white-noise regime at higher frequencies.