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6CCVD Research

Evaluation of the electrical contact area in contact-mode scanning probe microscopy

At a Glance

Section titled ā€œAt a Glanceā€
MetadataDetails
Publication Date2015-06-02
JournalJournal of Applied Physics
AuthorsUmberto Celano, Thomas Hantschel, Guido Giammaria, Ravi Chandra Chintala, Thierry Conard
InstitutionsIMEC, KU Leuven
Citations53

Abstract

Section titled ā€œAbstractā€

The tunneling current through an atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip is used to evaluate the effective electrical contact area, which exists between tip and sample in contact-AFM electrical measurements. A simple procedure for the evaluation of the effective electrical contact area is described using conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) in combination with a thin dielectric. We characterize the electrical contact area for coated metal and doped-diamond tips operated at low force (<200 nN) in contact mode. In both cases, we observe that only a small fraction (<10 nm2) of the physical contact (āˆ¼100 nm2) is effectively contributing to the transport phenomena. Assuming this reduced area is confined to the central area of the physical contact, these results explain the sub-10 nm electrical resolution observed in C-AFM measurements.

Tech Support

Section titled ā€œTech Supportā€

Original Source

Section titled ā€œOriginal Sourceā€

References

Section titled ā€œReferencesā€
  1. 2007 - Scanning Probe Microscopy Electrical and Electromechanical Phenomena at the Nanoscale

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