Reconstruction of Kelvin probe force microscopy image with experimentally calibrated point spread function.

The Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) is a method to detect the surface potential of micro- and nanostructured samples using a common Scanning Probe Microscope (SPM). The electrostatic force has a very long range compared to other surface forces. By using SPM systems the KPFM measurements are performed in the noncontact region at surface distances greater than 10 nm. In contrast to topography measurement, the measured data is blurred. The KPFM signal can be described as a convolution of an effective surface potential and a microscope intrinsic point spread function, which allows the restoration of the measured data by deconvolution. This paper deals with methods to deconvolute the measured KPFM data with the objective to increase the lateral resolution. An analytical and a practical way of obtaining the point spread function of the microscope was compared. In contrast to other papers a modern DoF-restricted deconvolution algorithm is applied to the measured data. The new method was demonstrated on a nanoscale test stripe pattern for lateral resolution and calibration of length scales (BAM-L200) made by German Federal Istitute for Materials Research and Testing.

We provide in this article a comprehensive study of the role of ac cross-talk effects in Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM), and their consequences onto KPFM imaging. The dependence of KPFM signals upon internal parameters such as the cantilever excitation frequency and the projection angle of the KPFM feedback loop is reviewed, and compared with an analytical model. We show that ac cross-talks affect the measured KPFM signals as a function of the tip-substrate distance, and thus hamper the measurement of three-dimensional KPFM signals. The influence of ac cross-talks is also demonstrated onto KPFM images, in the form of topography footprints onto KPFM images, especially in the constant distance (lift) imaging mode. Our analysis is applied to unambiguously probe charging effects in tobacco mosaic viruses (TMVs) in ambient air. TMVs are demonstrated to be electrically neutral when deposited on silicon dioxide surfaces, but inhomogeneously negatively charged when deposited on a gold surface.

Kelvin probe force microscopy provides quantitative insight into the electronic properties of thin molecular layers, as shown by the results of P. Samorì and co‐workers on p. 1407. In the cartoon shown in the inside front cover, a scanning charged tip probes the local surface potential of a self‐assembled layer, inducing charge polarization into a nanoscale “effective area”. These measurements make it possible to unravel the interplay between structural and electronic properties of molecule‐based materials and devices.We describe a systematic study on the influence of different experimental conditions on the Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) quantitative determination of the local surface potential (SP) of organic semiconducting nanostructures of perylene‐bis‐dicarboximide (PDI) self‐assembled at surfaces. We focus on the effect of the amplitude, frequency, and phase of the oscillating voltage on the absolute surface potential value of a given PDI nanostructure at a surface. Moreover, we investigate the role played by the KPFM measuring mode employed and the tip–sample distance in the surface potential mapping by lift‐mode KPFM. We define the ideal general conditions to obtain a reproducible quantitative estimation of the SP and we find that by decreasing the tip–sample distance, the area of substrate contributing to the recorded SP in a given location of the surface becomes smaller. This leads to an improvement of the lateral resolution, although a more predominant effect of polarization is observed. Thus, quantitative SP measurements of these nanostructures become less reliable and the SP signal is more unstable. We have also devised a semi‐quantitative theoretical model to simulate the KPFM image by taking into account the interplay of the different work functions of tip and nanostructure as well as the nanostructure polarizability. The good agreement between the model and experimental results demonstrates that it is possible to simulate both the change in local SP at increasing tip–sample distances and the 2D potential images obtained on PDI/highly oriented pyrolytic graphite samples. These results are important as they make it possible to gain a quantitative determination of the local surface potential of π‐conjugated nanostructures; thus, they pave the way towards the optimization of the electronic properties of electroactive nanometer‐scale architectures for organic (nano)electronic applications.

The ability of non-contact electric modes (Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and electrostatic force microscopy (EFM)) to provide quantitative information about the remnant polarization in a ferroelectric thin film is theoretically and experimentally investigated. The theoretical relationship between the microscopic signal and the polarization in the film is established: it is linear in the KPFM mode and parabolic in the EFM mode. The KPFM and EFM signals are predicted tip-shape, tip-surface distance, and poled area dimensions dependent so that an absolute value of the polarization cannot be extracted. Nevertheless provided these parameters are held constant, KPFM theoretically enables to investigate quantitatively the polarization dependence on any parameter relative to the film preparation conditions or to the poling process. It does not enable to investigate its dependence on poled area geometry. Based on these conclusions, experimental KPFM investigations have been carried out on a ferroelectric strontium barium niobate (SrxBa1−xNb2O6, SBN:100x) epitaxial thin film deposited on a platinum covered MgO substrate. Poled areas are created in the film by moving the biased tip in contact with the surface. KPFM images are dominated by the written polarization and not by injected or attracted extrinsic charges. The experimental decay of the KPFM signal with increasing tip-surface distance confirms the contribution of the volume of the lever/tip to the KPFM response. The spontaneous evolution of the written polarization as well as the polarization dependence on poling voltage and poling duration are investigated using KPFM, with the poled area dimensions as a parameter. For comparison, the macroscopic remnant polarization in the SBN film has been measured versus poling field from hysteresis cycles drawn using a macroscopic Pt dot as top contact. The significant difference observed between macroscopic and microscopic results can be accounted for by using a simple model of the inhomogeneous electric field generated by a poling tip. KPFM measurements do not alter the initial polarization of the film and can provide essential qualitative and quantitative information on the polarization in a ferroelectric thin film.

A comprehensive comparison study of electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) and Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) is conducted in this manuscript. First, it is theoretically demonstrated that for metallic or semiconductor samples, both the EFM and KPFM signals are a convolution of the sample surface potential with their respective transfer functions. Then, an equivalent point-mass model describing cantilever deflection under distributed loads is developed to reevaluate the cantilever influence on detection signals, and it is shown that the cantilever has no influence on the EFM signal, while it will affect the KPFM signal intensity but not change the resolution. Finally, EFM and KPFM experiments are carried out, and the surface potential is extracted from the EFM and KPFM images by deconvolution processing, respectively. The extracted potential intensity is well consistent with each other and the detection resolution also complies with the theoretical analysis. Our work is helpful to perform a quantitative analysis of EFM and KPFM signals, and the developed point-mass model can also be used for other cantilever beam deflection problems.

Field‐emission scanning electron microscopy (FE‐SEM) and surface potentiometry based on scanning probe microscopy, i.e. Kelvin probe force microscopy (KFM), have been applied to study microstructures consisting of organosilane self‐assembled monolayers (SAMs) terminated with ‐CH 3 or ‐CF 3 groups. Onto cleaned Si substrates covered with a thin oxide layer of 2 nm thick, SAMs were formed by chemical vapour deposition using n ‐octadecyltrimethoxysilane (CH 3 (CH 2 ) 17 Si(OCH 3 ) 3 , ODS) or fluoroalkylsilane (CF 3 (CF 2 ) 7 (CH 2 ) 2 Si(OCH 3 ) 3 , FAS) as a precursor. Through a photolithographic technique employing vacuum ultraviolet light at 172 nm, microstructures composed of ODS, FAS or both were fabricated. Micropatterns of the SAMs on SiO 2 /Si substrates were clearly imaged by FE‐SEM at an acceleration voltage of the electron beam below 1 kV, but image contrasts became faint with an increase in the acceleration voltage. At a voltage of 5 kV there was almost no detectable contrast. An FE‐SEM image of the ODS–FAS microstructure acquired at an acceleration voltage of 0.8 kV clearly demonstrated that the region covered with ODS was brighter and thus, emitted secondary electrons more efficiently than the region covered with FAS. Furthermore, as indicated in a KFM image, the region covered with FAS had a surface potential ∼180 mV lower than that of the region covered with ODS. The origin of these image contrasts between ODS‐ and FAS‐SAMs was the large difference in electronic states between ODS and FAS owing to the electron negativity of fluorine atoms. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Kelvin probe force microscopy (KFM) was applied to two-dimensional profiling of silicon pn-structures covered with a 2 nm-thick oxide layer. The surface potential contrast between the p- and n-type regions depended on the hydrophobicity of the oxide surface when KFM imaging was conducted in air with a relative humidity of more than 50%. By decreasing the density of surface hydroxyl groups on the oxide layer through thermal annealing, the potential contrast between the p- and n-type regions increased. While there was no detectable contrast on samples covered with hydrophilic oxide with a water contact angle of almost 0°, contrast increased to greater than 50 mV on the samples covered with hydrophobic oxide with a water contact angle of about 80°. However, when KFM imaging was conducted in a dry nitrogen atmosphere with relative humidity less than 0.6%, a clear potential contrast of about 50 mV could be acquired even on samples covered with the hydrophilic oxide layer. Since samples with less adsorbed water on their surface showed greater potential contrast, contrast degradation is attributed to a shielding effect of the adsorbed water layer.

The Point Spread Function (PSF) is one of the key indicators characterizing the signal transfer characteristics of an imaging system. Edge method is applicable to calculate the PSF of the remote sensing imaging systems for its easy implement and robust noise-resistant ability. In this paper, a Double-Knife-Edge method is proposed to recover the degraded images using a precise estimated PSF of the imaging system. The exact motion-blur direction is estimated by image differentiation firstly. Two orthogonal edges, one of which is in the same direction as the main motion-blur, are picked up from the candidate edges via Hough transform and employed to obtain edge spread functions (ESF). Derived from these ESFs, a more accurate PSF is used to deconvolute the degraded image by an image restoration algorithm based on total variation (TV) deconvolution which is capable of suppressing the artifacts and noise. The experiment results show that this algorithm is adaptive and efficient to reconstruct remote sensing images, and the reconstructed image has better PSNR, MSE and MTF than the original degraded image.

Effect of SP-C on surface potential distribution in pulmonary surfactant: Atomic force microscopy and Kelvin probe force microscopy study

Carbon nanomaterials are important for future sensors and electronics. Defects determine the material properties, therefore, it is critical to find new ways to investigate defects at the nanoscale. In this context, Raman spectroscopy (RS) is the tool of choice to study defects in carbon nanomaterials. On the other hand, Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) provides structural and surface potential information at the nanoscale. Here, the authors demonstrate the synergistic application of these methods in the investigation of ion‐beam‐induced defects in graphite. KPFM and RS imaging are used for visualizing ion‐induced defects in a wide range of ion doses from 1010 to 1016 ions cm−2. For the lower range of ion dose, the authors find that RS provides image contrast for the different defect regions in graphite up to a dose of 5 × 1013 ions cm−2. For higher doses, the sp2 carbon concentration becomes so small that the Raman spectra get dominated by broad amorphous carbon bands. For this dose range, the KPFM contrast allows the defective regions to be differentiated. This contrast in KPFM originates from sp3 carbons that act as charge traps. The results show that KPFM and Raman microscopy make a powerful and necessary combination for studying the spatial distribution of defects in carbon.

This article provides data on the scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) images of InAs(001) surface. Using the frequency-modulation (FM) method in AFM and KPFM, atomic resolution topography and contact potential difference (CPD) images of InAs(001) surface were obtained. The InAs(001) surface reconstruction images observed by STM and AFM are compared. The effect of AFM tip condition and tip-sample distance to AFM and KPFM imaging is verified by measuring frequency shift vs. tip-sample distance spectroscopy. This data article is related to the article entitled, “Kelvin prove force microscopy and its application” (Melitz et al., 2011) [1].

We present a combined non-contact atomic force microscopy and Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) investigation of the structural and electrical properties of Au nanoclusters on a TiO2 model-oxide surface at room temperature. The KPFM images reveal an increase in the local contact potential difference (LCPD) of Au clusters with respect to the supporting TiO2 surface. Variation of the LCPD shift with a broad range of tip-cluster distances verifies that the obtained KPFM images are not a cause of the topographic artifacts. Based on the LCPD shift, both in the distance-dependent bias spectroscopy and KPFM images, we provide new evidence supporting the charge transfer formation from the surface to the Au cluster. We attribute the increment of the LCPD over an Au cluster site to the presence of surface dipoles, created by the charge transfer, pointing towards the substrate.

Scanning confocal micro‐Raman and PL spectroscopy, Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and electrostatic force gradient microscopy (EFGM) were applied to study the concentration profiles of free carriers by scanning the cleaved edge along the growth direction of vertical n+/n0/n+‐GaN Gunn‐diode structure. The vertical frequency profile of the L– branch of the plasmon‐LO‐phonon modes was used to evaluate the concentration of free charge carriers. Obtained significant contrast through the undoped n0‐GaN region validates the expected reduction in carrier concentration. Variation of the local contrast in cross‐section KPFM and EFGM electrical images reflects the topology of the device structure and makes it possible to estimate electronic properties of individual GaN layers as well as interface boundaries. The carrier profiles determined from the Raman data and KPFM measurements are in good agreement. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) based alloys have strong potential in cost-effective and flexible photovoltaics. However, nc-Si:H undergoes light induced degradation (LID), which degrades the device efficiency by over 15%. The microstructural processes responsible for the LID are still under debate. Several recent studies suggest that the generation of metastable defects at grain/ grain-boundary (GB) interface enhances density of traps, which limits the charge collection efficiency. Conventional characterization techniques can measure transport properties such as electrical conductivity or carrier mobility averaged over large sample volumes. However, nanoscale characterization tools, such as Scanning Kelvin probe Force Microscopy (KFM), reveal local electronic properties of grains and GBs which may lead to better understanding of microscopic process of metastability. The optoelectronic properties of nc-Si:H films were measured in dark and under illumination to study the effect of LID at the nanoscale. The surface potential and charge distribution were measured in as-deposited and photo-degraded samples using a custom-designed scanning probe microscopy tool installed in an environment controlled glove-box. Photodegradation resulted in an upward bending of the conduction band edge, suggesting accumulation of photo-generated charges at GBs. This effect is attributed to the generation of acceptor like defects (traps) at GBs during illumination. Density of defects is estimated from grain/GB width and absolute value of band bending.

We report on the electrical characterization of V-defects in GaN-based heterostructures via Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM). The KPFM measurements show for n- and p-doped GaN top layers an increase in the work function within the V-defects. Surprisingly, an increase in the current flow within the V-defects is found by C-AFM in case of the n-doped structure, while current flow into the V-defect is suppressed for the p-doped structure. For a consistent explanation of these results we suggest a model, which is based on an increase in the electron affinity of the {10−11}-surfaces within the V-defects as compared to the planar (0001)-surface.