On the origin of energy loss in single-electron tunneling devices

In this paper the loss of energy (dissipation) in single-electron tunneling (SET) devices is discussed It is argued that, just as in the case of the orthodox theory of single-electronics, when tunneling immediately occurs at the moment the charge at the tunnel junction reaches the critical charge no energy will be lost. However, due to the stochastic tunneling process, it is argued that as soon as the actual tunneling takes place after the critical charge on the tunnel capacitance is passed, energy is lost during the tunneling event. This loss of energy, E-t, is proportional to U-a + U-b, where U-a and U-b are the voltages over the junction just after and the voltage over the junction just before the tunnel event, respectively.