Ultrasonically driven nanomechanical single-electron shuttle

The single-electron transistor is the fastest and most sensitive electrometer available today. Single-electron pumps and turnstiles are also being explored as part of the global effort to redefine the ampere in terms of the fundamental physical constants. However, the possibility of electrons tunnelling coherently through these devices, a phenomenon known as co-tunnelling, imposes a fundamental limit on device performance. It has been predicted that it should be possible to completely suppress co-tunnelling in mechanical versions of the single-electron transistor, which would allow mechanical devices to outperform conventional single-electron transistors in many applications. However, the mechanical devices developed so far are fundamentally limited by unwanted interactions with the electrical mechanisms that are used to excite the devices. Here we show that it is possible to overcome this problem by using ultrasonic waves rather than electrical currents as the excitation mechanism, which we demonstrate at low temperatures. This is a significant step towards the development of high-performance devices.