Experimental Investigation of Microwave Enhanced Cotunneling in SET Transistors

Cotunneling is an important error process in the application of single electron tunneling devices for metrological and electronic applications. Here we present an experimental investigation of the theory for adiabatic enhancement of cotunneling by coherent microwaves. The dependence is investigated as function of temperature, gate voltage, frequency, and applied microwave power. At low temperatures and applied power levels, the results are consistent with theory, using only the unknown damping in the microwave line as a free parameter. However, the results indicate that the effects of temperature, frequency and microwave power are not independent, contrary to what is suggested by theory.