Investigating Randomness in Fowler-Nordheim Quantum Tunneling Devices and Dynamical Systems

Abstract: The physics of Fowler-Nordheim (FN) quantum tunneling provides a mechanism to implement novel, room-temperature quantum dynamical systems on a standard silicon process. Previously, FN quantum devices have been used for self-powered sensing, dynamic storage, timekeeping, synchronization, authentication, and key exchange. All these approaches were based on continuous-time dynamics where each FN device operated independently of each other.  However, at a fundamental level, the dynamics of the FN device represent a counting process where the sequential tunneling of electrons results in discrete changes in the barrier slope (due to finite charge of a single electron) at discrete time-steps. In this talk, we will explore the underlying randomness in the dynamics of a network of single electron FN tunneling devices, the challenges associated with the measurement of single-electron jumps in their on-silicon implementation as well as explore novel applications of such systems.