We examined the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic of metal/polyimide/rhodamine-dendorimer/polyimide/ metal junctions prepared by the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique. At a temperature of 32.8 K, a step structure was observed in the I-V characteristic, whereas it was not observed for the junctions without rhodamine-dendorimer. The step structure was very similar to that seen in so-called Coulomb staircase. On the basis of the model of Coulomb blockade, the possibility of single electron tunneling via rhodamine-dendrimer (Rh-G2) molecule as a quantum dot was discussed.

Gate performance for observing Coulomb oscillations and Coulomb diamonds are compared for two types of gated sub-µm double-barrier heterostructures. The first type of device contains modulation-doped barriers, whereas the second type of device contains a narrower band gap material for the well and no barriers with doped impurities. Both the Coulomb oscillations and Coulomb diamonds are modified irregularly as a function of gate voltage in the first type of device, while in the second type of device they are only systematically modified, reflecting atom-like properties of a quantum dot. This difference is explained in terms of the existence of impurities in the first type of device, which inhomogeneously deform the rotational symmetry of the lateral confining potential as the gate voltage is varied. The absence of impurities is the reason why we observe the atom-like properties only in the second type of device.

The edge of a thin SOI (silicon on insulator) film was used to form a very narrow Si-MOS inversion layer. The ultra-thin SOI film was formed by local oxidation of SIMOX wafer. The thickness of the SOI film is less than 15 nm, i.e., the channel width is narrower than 15 nm. At low tempera-tures, clear and large conductance oscillations were seen in this edge channel MOSFET. These oscillations are explained by Coulomb blockade effects in the narrow channel with several effective potential barriers, since the SOI film is so thin that the channel current is seriously affected by small potential fluctuations in the channel. These results suggest that the channel current in edge quantum wire MOSFET can be cut off even with a small controlled potential change. Furthermore, we fabricated a double-gate edge channel Si-MOSFET. In this device, the channel current can be controlled in two ways. One way is to control the electron number inside the isolated electrodes. The other way is to control the threshold voltage of MOSFET. This device enables us to control the phase of Coulomb oscillation.