Abstract
An approach to measuring electrical contact resistance as a direct function of the true contact size at the nanoscale is presented. The approach involves conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) measurements performed on a sample system comprising atomically flat interfaces (up to several hundreds of nanometers in lateral size) formed between gold islands and a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrate. The method overcomes issues associated with traditional C-AFM such that conduction can be correlated with a measurable true, conductive contact area. Proof-of-principle experiments performed on gold islands of varying size point toward an increasing contribution of the island-HOPG junction to the measured total resistance with decreasing island size. Atomistic simulations complement and elucidate experimental results, revealing the maximum island size below which the electrical contact resistance at the island-HOPG junction can be feasibly extracted from the measured total resistance.
Highlights
Y (C-AFM), where a conductive AFM tip is used to scan a surface in contact mode, under the application of a bias voltage (V) between the AFM tip and the sample.6 During scanning, two complementary data maps are obtained: a topography map which provides nanometer scale information about the structure of the surface and a current (I) map, where the amount of current flowing between the tip and the sample is measured as a function of position on the sample surface
The approach involves conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) measurements performed on a sample system comprising atomically flat interfaces formed between gold islands and a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrate
For fundamental studies of Electrical contact resistance (ECR) at submicrometer length scales, researchers typically use conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM), where a conductive AFM tip is used to scan a surface in contact mode, under the application of a bias voltage (V) between the AFM tip and the sample
Summary
Y (C-AFM), where a conductive AFM tip is used to scan a surface in contact mode (where repulsive interaction forces are typically kept constant at the level of a few nanoNewton via feedback loops), under the application of a bias voltage (V) between the AFM tip and the sample.6 During scanning, two complementary data maps are obtained: a topography map which provides nanometer scale information about the structure of the surface and a current (I) map, where the amount of current flowing between the tip and the sample is measured as a function of position on the sample surface. The approach involves conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) measurements performed on a sample system comprising atomically flat interfaces (up to several hundreds of nanometers in lateral size) formed between gold islands and a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrate.
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