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Kazumasa NOMOTO Ryuichi UGAJIN Toshi-kazu SUZUKI Kenichi TAIRA Ichiro HASE
We propose a novel opto-electronic memory device using a single quantum dot (QD) and a logic device using coupled QDs (CQD) which performs (N)AND and (N)OR operations simultaneously. In both devices, occupation/unoccupation by a single electron in a QD is viewed as a bit 1/0 and data input/output (I/O) is performed by irradiation/absorption of photons. The (N)AND/(N)OR operations are performed by the relaxation of the electronic system to the Fock ground state which depends on the number of electrons in the CQD. When the device is constructed of semiconductor nanostructures, the main relaxation process is LA-phonon emission from an electron. Theoretical analysis of the device shows that (i) the error probability in the final state converges with the probability with which the system takes excited states at thermal equilibrium, i. e. , depends only on the dissipation energy and becomes smaller as the dissipation energy becomes larger, and (ii) the speed of operation depends on both the dissipation energy and dissipative interactions and becomes slower as the dissipation energy becomes larger if LA-phonon emission is taken into account. If the QDs are InAs cubes with sides of 10 nm and they are separated by the AlSb barrier with a width of 10 nm, the speed of operation and the error probability are estimated to be about 1 ns and about 0. 2 at 77 K, respectively. The basic idea of the device is applicable to two-dimensional (2D) pattern processing if the devices are arranged in a 2D array.