What is the Fastest Speed at which a Single Electron Can Be Detected?

dc.creatorRao, Deepak S.
dc.creatorSzkopek, Thomas
dc.creatorJiang, HongWen
dc.creatorYablonovitch, Eli
dc.date2005-07-22
dc.date2005-08-19
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T06:13:15Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T06:13:15Z
dc.descriptionElectrometers measure electric charge, but there must be a fundamental speed limit to measuring one electric charge. Since there are no dimensional inputs to this question, the answer must be expressible in terms of the fundamental physical constants of Nature, e,h,m,c. In general the question should be posed without reference to any specific technology, but for definiteness, we analyze the field effect transistor, which is essentially an electrometer. In spite of selecting a specific technology, we find that the speed limit is related to a fundamental constant, the Rydberg frequency, or as appropriate, the semiconductor Rydberg frequency including the electron effective mass, and the relative dielectric constant. We do not know whether the Rydberg frequency represents the upper speed limit, but on dimensional grounds we claim that the final limit can only differ by some power of the fine-structure-constant.
dc.description10 pages, 3 Figures
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0507224
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0507224
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/93041
dc.subjectQuantum Physics
dc.titleWhat is the Fastest Speed at which a Single Electron Can Be Detected?
dc.typetext

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