Conductance of the single-electron transistor: A comparison of experimental data with Monte Carlo calculations

TL;DR

This paper compares experimental conductance measurements of metallic single-electron transistors with Monte Carlo calculations, revealing strong agreement and deviations from perturbative theory, thus validating the Monte Carlo approach.

Contribution

It provides the first direct experimental comparison with Monte Carlo calculations for single-electron transistors without adjustable parameters.

Findings

Monte Carlo calculations agree well with experimental data across all conditions.

Significant deviations from perturbative theory are observed in weakly conducting transistors.

The experimental setup allows direct conductance measurement without symmetry assumptions.

Abstract

We report on experimental results for the conductance of metallic single-electron transistors as a function of temperature, gate voltage and dimensionless conductance. In contrast to previous experiments our transistor layout allows for a direct measurement of the parallel conductance and no ad hoc assumptions on the symmetry of the transistors are necessary. Thus we can make a comparison between our data and theoretical predictions without any adjustable parameter. Even for rather weakly conducting transistors significant deviations from the perturbative results are noted. On the other hand, path integral Monte Carlo calculations show remarkable agreement with experiments for the whole range of temperatures and conductances.