Measuring the Temperature of a Mesoscopic Quantum Electron System by means of Single Electron Statistics

Abstract: We measure the temperature of a mesoscopic system consisting of an ultra-dilute two dimensional electron gas at the $Si/SiO_2$ interface in a metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) quantum dot by means of the capture and emission of an electron in a point defect close to the interface. Contrarily to previous reports, we show that the capture and emission by point defects in Si n-MOSFETs can be temperature dependent down to 800 mK. As the finite quantum grand canonical ensemble model applies, the time domain charge fluctuation in the defect is used to determine the temperature of the few electron gas in the channel.