  A single-electron latch is a device that can be used as a building block for
Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) circuits. It consists of three nanoscale
metal "dots" connected in series by tunnel junctions; charging of the dots is
controlled by three electrostatic gates. One very important feature of a
single-electron latch is its ability to store ("latch") information represented
by the location of a single electron within the three dots. To obtain latching,
the undesired leakage of charge during the retention time must be suppressed.
Previously, to achieve this goal, multiple tunnel junctions were used to
connect the three dots. However, this method of charge leakage suppression
requires an additional compensation of the background charges affecting each
parasitic dot in the array of junctions. We report a single-electron latch
where a granular metal film is used to fabricate the middle dot in the latch
which concurrently acts as a charge leakage suppressor. This latch has no
parasitic dots, therefore the background charge compensation procedure is
greatly simplified. We discuss the origins of charge leakage suppression and
possible applications of granular metal dots for various single-electron
circuits.
