Single electron counting statistics for atto-Ampere currents through a semiconductor quantum dot

Abstract

We have implemented single electron counting for the tunneling current through a quantum dot. This allows us to study in detail the dynamics of transport. For certain settings of the gate and bias voltage we observe bimodal counting statistics which reveal the participation of different dot configurations in the transport process. The lifetime of these configurations is long compared to the mean tunneling times of the electrons. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.