PH3256 PHYSICS FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE

UNIT – V [NANO DEVICES ]

PART A
1. What is meant by bulk material?
The bulk material is a collection of atoms having property that are from
individual atoms.
2. Define density of energy states?
It is defined as the number of available energy states per unit volume, per unit energy
in a solid.
3. What is meant by quantum confinement?
The effect achieved by reducing the volume of a solid so that the energy levels within
it becomes discrete is called quantum confinement.
4. Give the application of quantum well and quantum wire.
Quantum well:
1. Quantum wells are now widely used to make semiconductor layers and other important
devices
2. Quantum well infrared photo detectors are also based on quantum
Quantum wire:
1. Quantum wires can be used for transistors.
2. A quantum wire application is nano barcodes which is used in wells, and are used for
infrared imaging medical field.
5. What is meant by Tunneling?
The phenomenon in which a particle, like an electron, encounters an energy barrier in
an electronic structure and suddenly penetrates is known as tunneling.
6. What is meant resonant tunneling diode?
The double barrier junction has important applications to a device known
as resonant tunneling diode.
7. Mention the advantage and disadvantage of RTD.
Advantages:
 Fabrication is very simple.
 Operation speed is very high and noise is low.
 Power dissipation is low.
Disadvantages:
 It is a low output swing device.
 It is difficult to isolate the input and output.
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8. What are the applications of resonant tunneling diode?

 It can use as normal diodes also.
 They are used as high frequency microwave oscillators
 When tunnel diode is operated under negative resistance region, then it can be
used as an oscillator or switch.
9. Define quantum interference?
A physical phenomena when two or more particles that are space and time independent
have an interaction, constructing or destructing their wave functions is known as quantum
interference.
10. Define Coulomb blockade.
The resistance to electron transport caused by electrostatic coulomb forces in certain
electronic structures, including quantum dots and single electron transistors is called
coulomb blockade.
11. What is meant by single electron transistor?
A transistor made from a quantum dot that controls the current from source to drain one
electron at a time is called single electron transistor.
12. Give the applications of single electron transistor.
 It is used for mass data storage.
 They can be used as a temperature probe.
 They can be used as ultrasensitive microwave detectors.
13. What is meant by quantum cellular automata?
The proposed improvement on complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS),
which have been devised in analogy to conventional models of cellular automata. QCA
technology is a perfect replacement of CMOS technology without any limitations.
14. Distinguish classical bits and quantum bits (Qubits).
S.NO. Classical Bits Quantum Bits(Qubits)
1. A classical computer has a memory made A quantum bit is a superposition of
up of bits where each bit hold either 1 or 0 and 1. A single qubit therefore

0. takes 2 classical values at once.

2. Processing of Bits are slow. Processing of Qubits are faster

15. Define Bloch sphere.

It is a geometrical representation of the pure state space of a two level quantum
mechanical system

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16. Mention the advantage and disadvantage of quantum computing.

Advantage
 They required less power.
 It can execute task very faster.
 They processes the data more accurately than classical computer.
Disadvantage
 The minimum energy requirement for quantum logical operations is five times that
of classical computers.

PART – B
1. Explain in detail quantum structure (or) quantum well, quantum wire and quantum
dot.
Quantum well:
It is a two-dimensional nanostructure in which there is confinement along one direction
and particle is free to move in other two directions. Particle possess discrete energies associated
with the confinement dimension. Particle energies are continuous along the other two
dimensions.
Quantum wire:
It is a one dimensional nanostructure in which there is confinement also two directions
and particle is free to move in one direction. Particle has discrete energies associated with these
two directions of confinement and continuous along the third direction.
Quantum dot:
It is a zero-dimensional nanostructure in which confinement of the particle occurs in all
the three directions. In this case, the number of degrees of freedom of the particle is zero.
Particle has discrete energies associated with its motion along all the three directions. Example
of quantum dot are nanoparticles, nanocrystals clusters.

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2. Explain in detail the quantum confinement.

The effect achieved by reducing the volume of a solid so that the energy levels within
it becomes discrete is called quantum confinement.
The nano crystals are also referred to as quantum dots. For a semiconductor particle,
quantum confinement occurs when the nano crystal radius becomes comparable to the
exaction Bohr radius. The confinement leads to a transition from continuous to discrete
energy levels. When the materials are so small that they lie in the quantum confinement
system, then their electronic and optical properties deviate substantially from those of bulk
materials. The discrete structure of energy state leads to a discrete absorption spectrum for
a nanostructure.
A quantum confined structure is one in which the motion of the electrons and holes are
confined in one or more directions by potential barriers. If the charge carriers are confined
along one direction and free in the other two directions, then the resultant structure is a
quantum well. When the confinement occurs in two dimensions and the carriers are free in
the remaining third dimension, then the resultant structure is a quantum wire.

Quantum structure Dimensions Confinement

Bulk material 3 0
Quantum well 2 1
Quantum wire 1 2
Quantum dot 0 3

The density of states determines the various electronic and other properties differ
dramatically for each of the three nanostructure.

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3. Describe the construction and working of single electron transistor

A transistor made form a quantum dot that controls the current from source to drain one
electron at a time is called single electron transistor.
The purpose of SET is to control the tunneling of electrons into and out of the quantum
dot. This is similar to the working of an FET, where the gate voltage creates an electric
field that alters the conductivity of the semiconducting channel below it, enabling current
to flow in form source to drain.
Applying a voltage to the gate in an SET creates an electric field and change the
potential energy of the dot with respect to the source and drain. This gate voltage-controlled
potential difference can make electrons in the dot attracted to the drain. For current to flow,
this potential difference must be atleast large enough to overcome the energy of the
coulomb blockade.
The energy ‘E’ needed to move a charge ‘Q’ across a potential energy difference ‘V’ is
given by
E = VQ
Hence, the energy needed equal to the energy of the coulomb blockade and determine
the voltage that will move an electron onto or off the dot.
𝑒
V =
2𝐶𝑑𝑜𝑡

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4. With necessary theory, describe the quantum structure and V-I characteristic of a
Resonant Tunneling Diode (RTD) along with its applications
Principle:
When electron (wave) incident with energy equal to energy level of a potential well of
thin barrier, then the tunnelling reaches its maximum value. This is known as resonant
tunnelling.
Structure:
It is made by using n-type GaAs for the regions to the left and right of both barriers. The
intrinsic GaAs is for the well region and AlGaAs for the barrier material. Tunnelling is
controlled by applying a bias voltage across the device

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V-I characteristics:
When the forward biasing voltage is increased the electrons from the n-region tunnel into
the potential barrier and reaches the p-region. Therefore, the current increases rapidly due to
tunneling effect and reaches the peak point P and this current is known as peak current. The
voltage at which the diode reaches peak current is called peak voltage.
Now the applied voltage is further increased, the tunneling effect decreases as most of the
electrons would have exhausted in tunneling process. Therefore, the current decreases and
reaches the valley point ‘V’. This current is called valley current and corresponding voltage is
called valley voltage. This region is called negative resistance region.
When the applied voltage is increase beyond the valley point, the tunnel diode behaves as
a normal diode.
The current in tunnel diode is due to three components,
1. Tunneling current
2. Diode current and
3. Excess current

Advantages:

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PH3256 PHYSICS FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE

 Fabrication is very simple.

 Operation speed is very high and noise is low.
Disadvantages:
 It is a low output swing device.
 It is difficult to isolate the input and output.
Application:
 It can use as normal diodes also.
 They are used as high frequency microwave oscillators
When tunnel diode is operated under negative resistance region, then it can be used as an
oscillator or switch.

Additional questions:
1. How does a CNOT gate work?
2. Explain quantum cellular automata and quantum system for information processing.
3. Write a note on Bloch sphere.