Advanced Nano-Electrical Characterization of Bidimensional Materials and Solar Cells with Atomic Force Microcopy

Paco Martinez, Applications And Development, CSI, LES ULIS, FRANCE
Louis Pacheco, Applications And Development, Csi, Les Ulis, France

Over the past  30 years, Atomic Force Microscopy has evolved from a microscope to measure just the surface topography to a wide variety of measurement modes that provides a way to characterize other atomic interactions or physical properties like magnetic field, electric field, nanoscale dissipation processes, thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, resistance, surface potential, piezoresponse, Young modulus,… Electrical nanocharacterization with AFM has emerged as a powerful tool to map electrical properties at the nanoscale, like surface potential (work function) and conductivity. However, traditional setups in AFM make difficult to obtain accurate and repeteable results over several types of samples.

In this contribution we will show the capabilities new developed AFM modes: High Definition Kelvin Force Microscopy (HD-KFM), ResiScope, Soft-Resiscope and Scaning Microwave that overcome the intrinsic difficulties of electrical nanocharacterization with AFM. These techniques have been applied on a wide variety of substrates: bidimensional materials, like graphene or molibdene disulfide, organic solar cells or nanoparticles providing high stability, sensitivity and lateral resolution.