REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

VOLUME 71, NUMBER 4

APRIL 2000

Random telegraph noise analysis in time domain

Y. Yuzhelevski, M. Yuzhelevski, and G. Junga)
Department of Physics, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, 84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel

Received 24 September 1999; accepted for publication 16 December 1999 A new procedure for analysis of random telegraph signals in time domain has been developed and applied to the analysis of voltage uctuations in the current induced dissipative state in superconducting thin lms. The procedure, based entirely on the difference in the statistical properties of discrete Marcovian telegraph uctuations and Gaussian background noise, ascribes each point of the experimental time record to one of the telegraph states. The average statistical lifetimes and amplitudes of the telegraph signal are then determined in an iterative way by tting the amplitude histogram of thus obtained record of the redistributed data to the two-Gaussian histogram of the original experimental signal. The procedure allows for analyzing noisy random telegraph signals with low ratio between the signal amplitude and the intensity of the background noise that cannot be analyzed by the classical approach. Separation of the time record into two subrecords relative to two telegraph states also enables in-depth analysis of the spectral properties of the background noise observed together with the telegraph uctuations. 2000 American Institute of Physics. S0034-67480002504-1

I. INTRODUCTION

Noise components in the experimental signal due to random uctuations of an observable physical quantity may be seen as an unwanted evil disturbing the experiment, or on the contrary, as a precious source of information about the processes in the investigated system. Among the noise signals that can be employed as a tool for deeper insight into the nature of physical mechanisms, the most important role is played by random telegraph uctuations. In the presence of random telegraph uctuations the value of the measured quantity randomly switches between two or more xed levels. The time of transition between the levels is negligibly short with respect to the average time that system spends in any telegraph level. In the simplest, but nevertheless frequently encountered case of two-level random telegraph signal RTS, the observable switches randomly between two xed levels, referred to as up and down. Random telegraph uctuations have been seen in a large variety of systems.1 The far from being complete list includes metallic nanobridges,2 small low temperature Josephson junctions,3 superconducting quantum interferometers and interference devices SQUIDs,4 charge density wave materials,5 two-dimensional electron gas,6 quantum dots,7 amorphous solids,8 single electron devices,9 metallic glasses,10 high T c superconductors in weak1113 and strong14 magnetic elds, high T c Josephson junctions, and SQUIDs.15 Generation of two-level RTS noise can generally be traced down to an action of a two-level uctuator TLF consisting of two energy wells separated by a barrier. The investigated system undergoes thermally activated or tunnel transitions between the wells that result in random switching
a

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; also at Instytut w 32, PL 02-668 Warszawa, Poland; electronic Fizyki PAN, Al.Lotniko mail: jung@bgumail.bgu.ac.il 1681

of the measured observable. The information about physical properties of the system, such as the height of the energy barrier in the two-level uctuator and its dependence on the experimental parameters, may be inferred from the statistical analysis of the RTS signal. The overwhelming majority of the reported experimental activity in random telegraph noise measurements has been concentrated around metaloxidesemiconductor MOS devices,16 where charge traps have been found to be responsible for the RTS uctuations. Analysis of RTS uctuations in MOS systems provided information about the nature and properties of charge traps and associated defects located on the M S interface and/or in the semiconducting channel.17 Similar noise spectroscopy measurements can, in principle, be performed in any system in which the nature of the TLF uctuator generating telegraph uctuations is known. Random telegraph signals are frequently evoked in the context of 1/ f -like uctuations. The widely accepted Dutta and Horn model of 1/ f noise assumes that icker noise in solids results from incoherent superposition of many elementary RTS contributions1 originating from an assembly of independent uctuators. Telegraph uctuations also appear in the systems exhibiting stochastic resonance.18 The most common approach to the measurements of any random signal consists of measuring the averaged power spectral density of the random signal in the frequency domain. Pure two-level RTS signal is represented in the frequency domain by a Lorentzian spectrum. However, since the RTS process is strongly non-Gaussian, the time domain record cannot be univocally deducted from the measured frequency domain spectrum since the form of its spectrum is insensitive to the inversion of the signal, i.e., to the mutual replacement of up and down states, and/or to the inversion of the direction of time. The spectral measurements are capable of providing only the value of the corner frequency, i.e., the
2000 American Institute of Physics

0034-6748/2000/71(4)/1681/8/$17.00

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Yuzhelevski, Yuzhelevski, and Jung

FIG. 1. An experimental recording of a random telegraph signal having a large amplitude with respect to the background noise intensity.

frequency above which the spectral density rolls off as f 2 and does not allow for resolving the average lifetimes in the individual RTS states. Thus the frequency domain measurements do not provide all the information required by noise spectroscopy techniques. The knowledge of the RTS lifetimes and amplitudes is of primary importance for deriving information about the investigated physical system. This information can be obtained only from a direct statistical analysis of RTS signals in the time domain. The standard procedure for the analysis of random telegraph uctuations in time domain consists of directly nding in the time record the time instances at which the system undergoes transitions between the distinct states. This is the most crucial and delicate stage of the analysis. Having annotated the record with switching instances one can directly determine individual pulse lengths and switch amplitudes, build their histograms, and determine the statistical average values. The above procedure is straightforward in the case of clean RTS signals, i.e., in the case of a signal with favorable ratio between the RTS amplitude and background noise intensitylike the event depicted in Figs. 1 and 2. However, in the experimental reality one always observes RTS uctuations on the background of other background noise components contributed by the investigated system and by the measuring chain. Therefore, one frequently has to deal with RTS signals that are strongly perturbed by the background noise. For such records it is very difcult to determine the precise moments at which the transitions occur and the values of individual switch amplitudes. The procedure of direct determination of the switch moments is generally tedious and fails completely in the case of signals having small ratio of the RTS amplitude to the background noise variance, like is the case of the RTS record illustrated in Fig. 3. In this article we propose a new approach to the time domain analysis of RTS signals based on differences in statistical properties of telegraph and background uctuations. The method consists of constructing the amplitude histogram of the time record and separating all data points into two distinct subrecords belonging to the discrete RTS levels. The separation is performed using the probability criterion developed in the assumption that the telegraph noise is a Marcovian process while the background noise is assumed to be Gaussian. Thus the obtained record of the redistributed data points is tted to the original experimental two-Gaussian distribution in an iteration procedure in which the RTS average

FIG. 2. The amplitude histogram of the time record from Fig. 1. The continuous line represents best t to two-Gaussian distribution of the signal around the telegraph levels. Note that amplitude histograms of the telegraph levels do not overlap and the time domain analysis is straightforward.

lifetimes became the tting parameters. As a result one obtains the values of statistically averaged RTS parameters and annotates each data point with a marker ascribing it to the particular RTS states. The record of the annotations can be used as a guide for the more in-depth analysis of the random telegraph signal, such as e.g., the analysis of the spectral properties of the background noise on each telegraph level.19 We discuss here the application of the new analysis procedure to a two-level RTS, although the proposed approach can be extended to a more general multilevel RTS case. We demonstrate the feasibility and efciency of the proposed method by applying it to the analysis of random telegraph voltage uctuations showing out in the current induced superconducting dissipative state in high T c Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 x thin lms.12,19

II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The two-level random telegraph process can be considered as a discrete two-state Markov process. In the following we shall refer to the two states of the telegraph signal as the up and dn state, dening the up state as the one in which the absolute value of a uctuating observable is higher. The statistical properties of such a process are determined by the probabilities of nding the system in the up and dn states and the probabilities of transition per unit time between the states. Let P up( t ) be the probability that the system undergoes a transition from the state up to the state dn in time t. Consequently, 1 P up( t ) is the probability that the lifetime in the state up is longer than t. The probability of a transition to the state dn in the time interval contained between t and t t , under the condition that there was no preceding transition in time t, can be expressed as d P up t t dt up . P p t,t 1 P up t

Since we assume that the RTS is a Marcovian process, this probability depends only on the length of the time interval t and does not depend on time t. The probability can be

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Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 71, No. 4, April 2000

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expressed as P up p ( t , t ) C t , where C is a constant having a sense of a probability density. Putting this into Eq. 1 we have d P up t C 1 P up t , dt 2

The solution for the probability of transition with the initial condition P up(0) 0, is P up t 1 e Ct . 3 The probability that the lifetime in the state up is contained between t and t t is d P up t t Ce Ct t . dt 4

Thus the lifetime probability density is exponentially distributed P up t Ce Ct . This density is correctly normalized to 5

p up t dt 1,

and the average lifetime on the level up t up

tp up t dt C

te Ct dt

1 up C

corresponds to the inverse of the probability density of a transition to the state dn, up 1/C . In an analogous way, by repeating the above consideration for the state dn we obtain that the probability of transition from dn to up in time t is P dn t 1 e t / dn , 8 where dn is the average lifetime in the state dn. The power spectral density PSD of a single two-level uctuator undistributed by a background noise is fully characterized by the average lifetimes in the up, up , and down, dn , state and by the signal amplitude V 20 S f 4V2 1 up dn 2 , 3 up dn 1 4 2 f 2 / f 2 c 9

1 1 where f c is the corner rolloff frequency f c up dn . As we have already pointed out in Sec. I that the RTS Lorentzian spectrum is invariant with respect to the mutual replacement of up and dn states. The only information contained in the spectrum is the value of the corner frequency, which depends on both characteristic lifetimes, and PSD intensity at zero frequency. Observe that the PSD at zero frequency is proportional to the signal amplitude with the proportionality coefcient depending on both average lifetimes. One may argue that efcient analysis of the RTS signal can be performed by using jointly the time domain and the frequency domain analysis. Namely, by tting the experimental record to Eq. 9 one can determine the fast rate. Then, by tting the time record to two Gaussian distributions one nds directly the occupancy ratio, and thus the slow RTS

rate. However, this procedure can be accurate only for the RTS signals with signicantly different characteristic lifetimes in the distinct states, say e.g., up dn . For such strongly asymmetric RTS signals the approximation f c 1 1 1 up dn dn , here dn is the fast rate, holds and the rolloff frequency determined from the Lorentzian spectrum is indeed close to the inverse of the fast rate. Nevertheless, in order to correctly t the RTS record to Eq. 9 one has to request additionally that the background noise contribution to the total measured spectrum does not modify signicantly the overall spectrum of the record. Unfortunately, most of the experimentally observed RTS signals do not fulll these requirements. Only in the particular case of a symmetric RTS signal, i.e., the signal for which up dn , can one infer the complete information necessary for resolving the dynamics of a two-level uctuator from the spectral measurements. In all other cases the full statistical information about the investigated physical system can be obtained only from the detailed time domain analysis. In the experiments the random telegraph signal always appears superimposed on the background noise. The experimentally measured PSD of a telegraph signal also contains contribution from the background noise. The knowledge of the average RTS lifetimes and RTS amplitude allows in principle see Eq. 9 for the reconstruction of the PSD contribution due to the pure undistributed RTS. Spectral properties of the background noise can be evaluated by subtracting the calculated RTS contribution from the total measured spectrum of the experimental signal. Observe however, that such procedure is correct only when the background noise and RTS uctuations are statistically independent. This may not always be the case. In the literature there is much convincing experimental evidence of possible correlations between the RTS and the background noise. In the most convincing the intensity of the background noise changes synchronously with the RTS switching.21,22 For such events the total measured spectral density is composed of three terms, S ( ) S RTS S bgnd( ) S RTS,bgnd( ), namely, RTS, background noise and the cross-correlation term. For such signals the simple procedure of evaluating the background noise spectral properties by subtracting the calculated RTS spectrum from the measured one cannot be applied. In the analysis procedure that is proposed in this article each single data point of the acquired record is ascribed to a particular RTS state. In this way we are able to separate, directly in the time domain, the RTS and background noise contributions and create articial time records with subtracted RTS contribution. This enables us to study the background noise properties separately on each RTS level and draw conclusions about its spectral properties and degree of correlation between both random processes.19
III. TIME DOMAIN ANALYSIS

The proposed procedure of analysis of RTS signals in time domain is based on the analysis of the amplitude histograms of the measured signal and on the separation of all data points into two subrecords, each belonging to a given RTS level, according to the probability criterion. In the pro-

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FIG. 3. A recording of a noisy telegraph signal with low signal-to-noise ratio.

FIG. 4. The amplitude histogram of the time record from Fig. 3. Solid line shows the best t to two-Gaussian distribution. Due to strong overlapping of the amplitude histograms associated with each telegraph levels direct analysis of the telegraph signal is not possible.
up dn the range U U min U and U U max . The meaning of all characteristics values of the considered two Gaussian distribution are indicated in Fig. 5 showing a plot of the function, Eq. 10. The separation of the remaining data points, data from the range where the amplitude distributions overlap, has to performed by means of the probability analysis. Probability that a point belonging to the state up takes a value U such that

cedure we are making only two basic assumptions. We assume that the RTS signal is a discrete two-level Marcovian process characterized by the amplitude distribution having the form of two delta functions centered on the RTS levels and Poissonian distributions of the lifetimes pulse length. The second assumption is that the broad distributions of the experimentally measured signal amplitudes around each telegraph level are due only to the presence of a background noise, which is assumed to be Gaussian. To analyze the random signal we rst sample the continuous signal U ( t ) with the sampling frequency f c 1/ t . As a result we obtain a digital record U n containing N data points that are equally spaced in time. Index n , 1,2, . . . N , and numbers chronologically all data points, the total length of the record is N t . In the rst step we build an amplitude histogram of the acquired record with a bin size U and t it to the sum of two Gaussian distributions corresponding to the background noise distributions around average values of the RTS signal up , and down, U dn , states in the up, U G U G dn U n G up U n A dn

U n

U U U U n 2 2 U . A up

is G up U n 11

Similarly, the probability that a point form the state dn takes a value U contained within the range U around U n , U ( U n U /2,U n U /2), is G dn U n U . A dn 12

dn2
A up

e U n U dn

2 /2 2 dn

up2

2 /2 2 , exp U n U up up

10

Let us assume that the point n 1 belongs to the state dn. This assumption means that we start the analysis from up . The probone of the data points having the value U U min ability that the next data point n will take a value U ( U n U /2,U n U /2) is given by a sum of two terms describing probabilities of alternative events in which point n be-

where up and dn are the standard deviations of the up and dn distribution, respectively. The areas under the Gaussian curves, A up N up U and A dn N dn U , depend on the number of data points in the record N up and N dn that belong to the respective up and dn telegraph state. Separation of data points between the telegraph levels is a simple and straightforward procedure for RTS signals characterized by an amplitude that is large with respect to the standard deviation of the background noise. Indeed, for the RTS event illustrated in Fig. 1 the Gaussian distributions corresponding to two RTS levels see Fig. 2 do not overlap and data points can be easily separated into two subrecords. For events with less favorable signal-to-noise ratio, like the one illustrated in Fig. 3, the Gaussian distributions overlap see Fig. 4 and straightforward redistribution of data points can be performed only for the points having amplitudes from

FIG. 5. Two-Gaussian amplitude distribution with indicated characteristic amplitudes.

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Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 71, No. 4, April 2000

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longs to the state up, P n 1 dn U U n and n up , or alternatively, to the state dn, P n 1 dn U U n and n dn . The rst one is the product of the probability that U takes a value from the range ( U n U /2,U n U /2) and belongs to the state up, i.e., the probability that a transition has occurred P n 1 dn U U n U /2,U n U /2 and n up G up U n U t . A up dn 13

The criterion for attributing the data point either to the up, or to the dn state, knowing that the preceding data point belonged to the state up, can be based on the analysis of the function Fup( U n ): Fup U n P n 1 up U U n U /2,U n U /2 and dn P n 1 up U U n U /2,U n U /2 and up A up t G dn U n . G up U n A dn up t 18

The second terms describes the probability of an event in which point n takes has a value from the range

U n

U U , U n 2 2

and belongs to the state dn, P n 1 dn U U n U /2,U n U /2 and n dn , i.e., no transition has occurred in the time that elapsed between the acquisition of the data points n and n 1 P n 1 dn U U n U /2,U n U /2 and n dn G dn U n U t 1 . A dn dn

14

The decision of ascribing point n to one of the two RTS states can be based on comparing the probabilities of Eqs. 13 and 14. Let us formulate the criterion of attributing point n either to the state up or to the state dn, knowing that the previous point belonged to the state dn, by dening the function Fdn( U n ) Fdn U n P n 1 dn U U n U /2,U n U /2 and n up P n 1 dn U U n U /2,U n U /2 and n dn A dn t G up U n . G dn U n A up dn t 15

As in the previously discussed case, for Fup 1 n dn , whereas for Fup 1 we have n up . In practice we formulate the criterion by nding solu* tions to the equations Fdn 1 and Fup 1. The solutions, U dn * and U up , respectively, give us the threshold values see Fig. 5 allowing for fast segregation of the data points between the telegraph states. If the previously analyzed point was attributed to the state dn then the next data point will be * and to the ascribed to the same state if its value U n U dn opposite state otherwise. If the point n 1 was ascribed to the up state then the next data point will belong to the same *. state if U n U up Note that in order to determine the threshold voltages one needs to know the actual values of the following parameters: areas under the Gaussian curves A up and A dn , mean up and U dn , their stanvalues of the Gaussian distributions U dard deviations up and dn , and the average lifetimes up and dn . All but the last two quantities are already known from the initial t of the experimental amplitude histogram to the two Gaussian distribution. The average lifetime can be easily evaluated from the relevant areas under the Gaussian curves A provided the total number of transition in the record k is known. For the even number of transitions the average lifetime of the initial state, the state in which the record begins and ends, can be expressed as

Clearly, when Fdn 1 then n up , whereas for Fdn 1 we have n dn . In an analogous way, assuming that point n 1 belongs to the state up with a probability P ( n 1 up ) 1, i.e., max , we write that the probability that point n has that U n U dn an amplitude U n and belongs to the same RTS state as the preceding point is P n 1 up U U n U /2,U n U /2 and up U t G up U n 1 , A up up

At , k U 1 2

while the average lifetime of the remaining state is

At . k U 2

16

For the odd number of transitions the average lifetime of both RTS states is

while the probability that a transition occurred and the point n belongs to the opposite, dn state is P n 1 up U U n U /2,U n U /2 and dn G dn U n U t . A dn up 17

At . k1 U 2

In reality the analyzed time records are sufciently long and contain large number of transitions, such that k 1. In the large k approximation the RTS average lifetimes for all possible cases can be approximated as

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Yuzhelevski, Yuzhelevski, and Jung

up
and

2 A up t, k U

19

dn

2 A dn t, k U

20

Nevertheless, the number of transitions in the record is also not know from the initial tting of the data histogram to the two-Gaussian distribution. This problem can be resolved by tentatively redistributing data points according to a simplied rough criterion that does not require the knowledge of the average lifetimes and subsequently nding the number of transitions through interactive tting procedures to the experimental Gaussian histograms. One can derive the rough probability criterion from the solutions for U * s of Eqs. 18 and 15 in the approximation up dn . These solutions read

* U dn
and

dn U up 2 dn U dn dn , * U ln 1 U dn 2 U t 21

record is created and the new value of the number of transitions k 1 is counted. We repeat the separation procedure by putting k 1 for the number of transitions. The procedure is continued until the nal number of transitions k n is obtained. The nal k n is the number for which the individual Gaussian distributions for each state t, under the 2 criterion, to the original experimentally obtained curves G up( U ) and/or G dn( U ). The procedure is fast converging and typically n 5 iterations are needed to obtain the real value of k that enables us to obtain the real values of both average lifetimes up and dn . In the process of data redistribution according to the probability criterion one can commit an error by ascribing a point to the dn state while it actually belongs to the up state, or vice versa. The probability of this type-I error corresponds to the areas contained below the Gaussian distributions, normalized to zero means and unit standard deviations, * and U U up * see Fig. 5. The probfor amplitudes U U dn abilities of committing such an error, in the approximation up dn , can be expressed as 1 erf
dn S err

dn U up 2 up U up up , * ln 1 U U up 2 V t where V 2 up up ln 1 , 2 V t and

dn

27

22

and 1 erf
up S err

23

up

28

dn V 2 ln 1 dn 2 V t

24

are the respective deviations of the threshold voltage from the center of each Gaussian distribution. dn * and The rough, overestimated threshold voltages U * U up for the initial redistribution of the data points can be the following: * U dn U dn and * U up U up V 2 . 2 U 26

2 V , 2 U

25

where erf(t) is the error function. Clearly, the error probability decreases with increasing signal-to-noise ratio V / and increasing sampling frequency, which results in the increase of the / t ratio. The proposed algorithm cannot be applied to any telegraph signal with arbitrarily large background noise intensity. The probability of error increases with increasing overlapping of the Gaussian distributions, namely when the * U U dn * starts to occupy the domiamplitude interval U up nant part of the histogram. In this case the procedure freezes the initial state chosen as the starting point of the analysis and no transitions are being detected. The limiting criterion for the proper operation of the procedure is that the respective deviations of the threshold voltages from the centers of Gaussian distributions are smaller than the signal amplitude, i.e., again in the approximation up dn V 2 ln 1 V. 2 V t

Having redistributed points of the acquired record U n between two RTS states according to the rough criterion we attribute to each point from the state up the value 1, and to each point from the state dn the value 1. We count the number of transitions through zero, k 0 in the created digital RTS signal. We use this value as the zero order approximation of the average lifetimes and restart the separation procedure, now using the criterion, Eqs. 18 or 15, whichever is appropriate for the starting points of the record, using up and dn values given by Eqs. 19 and 20 for the roughly evaluated number of transitions k 0 . The new digital RTS

29

This condition give us the limiting signal-to-noise ratio that still allows for the proper operation of the proposed procedure. One can apply the procedure to the telegraph signals for which V

2 ln t

1 .

30

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Rev. Sci. Instrum., Vol. 71, No. 4, April 2000

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IV. ANALYSIS OF TELEGRAPH SIGNALS IN CURRENT INDUCED DISSIPATIVE STATE OF HIGH T c SUPERCONDUCTING STRIPS

Let us illustrate the proposed analysis procedure on an example of RTS voltage noise appearing in current biased superconducting high T c thin lms. We want to remind the reader that voltages may appear across a superconducting specimen when it remains in a thermodynamically superconducting state, due to dissipation induced by motion of magnetic ux vortices and/or due to the presence of Josephson junctions. High T c superconductors are extreme type-II superconductors in which ux processes due to relatively weak pinning energies and high temperatures of operation dominate the dissipation. In particular, with increasing transport current superconducting lms became unstable with respect to vortex formation. The critical current of a high T c thin lm corresponds therefore to the current at which vortices, nucleated by the self-eld of the transport current at the sample edges if there is no external eld applied, start to move. For current ow above the critical value vortices of opposite sign continuously nucleate at the lm borders, move toward the center and annihilate leading to the appearance of a dc voltage accompanied by a uctuating noise component. The voltage appearing in the current induced superconducting dissipative state comes from additive contributions of all moving vortices. In the discussed experiments we have used BiSrCaCuO thin lms patterned into a form of strips equipped with contact arrangement enabling four point contact voltage measurements. During the measurements no external magnetic eld was applied, thus the voltage measured across the strip is due to the ow of vortices created by the self-eld of the transport current only. This type of dissipation is known to be associated with the channeling of vortex ow along the spontaneously created paths of easy vortex ow. Vortices moving in channels of easy vortex ow are driven along the channel by the Lorentz force of the transport current. Pinning sites located along the vortex path may trap/release a vortex and result in random closing/opening of a vortex channel. The intermittence in the channeled vortex ow translates into uctuations in the number of dissipating vortices and leads to the appearance of the random telegraph noise component in the voltage drop across the strip. The RTS events depicted in

FIG. 7. Power spectral density of the experimental record shown in Fig. 6. shown together with the separated background noise and pure RTS dashed line contributions.

FIG. 6. Analysis of a noisy telegraph signal by means of the proposed procedure. a The original experimental recording. b Clean telegraph contribution obtained by means of data redistribution according to the probability criterion.

Figs. 1 and 3 were in fact recorded in the current induced dissipative state of the thin lm BiSrCaCuO strip.12 The amplitude of the telegraph signal generated by the channel intermittence is proportional to the difference in the number of owing vortices N and to the vortex velocity. The velocity of vortices is, in turn, directly proportional to the current ow see Refs. 12 and 19 for detailed discussion of RTS mechanisms in HTSC. Therefore, at low currents the RTS signal-to-noise ratio is very unfavorable and the statistical analysis of such a telegraph signal by means of standard techniques is difcult or even impossible. Figure 6 shows the experimentally recorded RTS signal with the corresponding amplitude histogram, and the clean telegraph contribution revealed by application of the proposed analysis procedure described in this article. The statistical average parameters of the RTS contribution, such as the mean lifetimes in both states and the average amplitude, have been determined in the course of data redistribution between two telegraph states. Note that even those telegraph jumps that are strongly perturbed by the background noise can be seen in the pure RTS record. The clean RTS signal can be employed as a guide to separate the background noise from the experimental record and to analyze its spectral properties. For this purpose one can eliminate the RTS contribution from the experimental record by subtracting the telegraph amplitude V from all data points that are attributed to the state up. Thus the obtained noise record contains only the background noise component. The spectral properties of the background noise can be now analyzed by means of standard Fourier transform procedures. The results of the analysis are depicted in Fig. 7. The background noise power spectrum obtained from the modied time record follows the power law S ( ) 1/ 1/2 law within the experimental frequency range. This procedures enabled us to analyze changes in the background noise with changing bias current and address the problem of frequently observed different background noise intensities at distinct telegraph levels for the preliminary results see Ref. 19. In conclusion, we have proposed and demonstrated the feasibility of new procedures for analyzing random telegraph

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9

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uctuations in time domain. The analysis provides average statistical values of the telegraph uctuations and enables in-depth analysis of the background noise.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by The Israel Science Foundation founded by The Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and by Israeli Ministry of Science.
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