Analysis of negative differential conductance of single-island single-electron transistors owing to Coulomb oscillations

Despite many years of effort, the precise origin of negative differential resistance (NDR) shown by some organic layers remains unclear. Tang et al. accounted qualitatively for NDR phenomena by coulomb blockade of single-electron transistors (SETs). From this foundation, a novel method based on analysis of the charge stability diagram of a SET is proposed in this study. The method can be used to systematically analyse negative differential conductance (NDC) characteristic of a SET and some organic layers. With this method, the NDC effect is explained with respect to device parameters, and several NDC cells proposed by others are analysed in detail. The results show that this method can be efficiently used to analyse the NDC effect of SETs and some organic layers.