Abstract
Scanning probe microscopy is an established tool for characterization of the linear static and frequency-dependent lateral electronic transport in materials and devices at the nanoscale. In this letter, a modified scanning impedance microscopy (SIM) technique is proposed to extend the nanoscale transport measurements of intrinsic material properties to the nonlinear regime, through detection of frequency harmonics, and exemplified by a detailed study of a prototypical metal-semiconductor interface. The imaging mechanism, surface - tip contrast transfer, optimal experimental conditions, and potential applications of nonlinear SIM are discussed. This technique can be readily transferred to most cantilever-based scanning probe microscopes.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 4240-4242 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | Applied Physics Letters |
| Volume | 85 |
| Issue number | 18 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 1 2004 |
Funding
Research performed as a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow and staff member at ORNL (S.V.K.). Support from ORNL Laboratory Research and Development funding is acknowledged (V.M., A.P.B., and S.V.K.). V.M. acknowledges support from the Mathematical, Information and Computational Sciences Division, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research of the U.S. Department of Energy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-ACO5-000R22725.