Sensors (Aug 2024)

Conductive Atomic Force Microscopy—Ultralow-Current Measurement Systems for Nanoscale Imaging of a Surface’s Electrical Properties

  • Andrzej Sikora,
  • Krzysztof Gajewski,
  • Dominik Badura,
  • Bartosz Pruchnik,
  • Tomasz Piasecki,
  • Kamil Raczkowski,
  • Teodor Gotszalk

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/s24175649
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24, no. 17
p. 5649

Abstract

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One of the most advanced and versatile nanoscale diagnostic tools is atomic force microscopy. By enabling advanced imaging techniques, it allows us to determine various assets of a surface, including morphological, electrical, mechanical, magnetic, and thermal properties. Measuring local current flow is one of the very important methods of evaluation for, for instance, photovoltaic materials or semiconductor structures and other nanodevices. Due to contact areas, the current densities can easily reach above 1 kA/m2; therefore, special detection/measurement setups are required. They meet the required measurement range, sensitivity, noise level, and bandwidth at the measurement scale. Also, they prevent the sample from becoming damaged and prevent unwanted tip–sample issues. In this paper, we present three different nanoscale current measurement solutions, supported with test results, proving their performance.

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