Properties of shunt-protected tunneling devices for the Electron Counting Capacitance Standard (ECCS) experiment at PTB

We report on the progress in the Electron-Counting-Capacitance-Standard (ECCS) experiment. In particular, we address electrostatic breakdown in metallic single-electron tunneling (SET) structures fabricated on high-quality insulating substrates, An approach was developed via on-chip silicon shunts protecting the high-ohmic nanoscale tunnel junctions against damage.