Single electron transport in nanoelectromechanical system

Nanotechnology has advanced the ability to fabricate systems in which semiconductor materials can be defined as the functional and structural units of nanoelectronic devices. The mechanical degrees of freedom of these devices in a certain environment can play an important role in that charge transfer via tunneling can be enhanced by mechanical motion. Along this line of thought, nanoelectromechanical devices are realized as nanopillars made of a silicon base with a small metallic tip on top. Coulomb-controlled electron tunneling facilitated by mechanical motion is investigated.;In this thesis, we review previous theoretical works regarding shuttle mechanism for charge transfer in Coulomb blockade nanostructure, the response of a single electron shuttle under an AC excitation, and the current rectification via two coupled electron shuttles. These calculations are applied to analyze experiments demonstrating Coulomb blockade and current rectification in two coupled nanomechanical electron shuttles. Also, the system is driven to a highly nonlinear regime by increasing external AC /DC voltages, revealing the transition towards chaos. As an effort to reach the ultra high frequency limit, a suspended metallic island is realized showing Coulomb-controlled field electron emission at 77 K.