Defects in oxide surfaces studied by atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopy

• Thomas König,
• Georg H. Simon,
• Lars Heinke,
• Leonid Lichtenstein and
• Markus Heyde

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 1–14, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.1

• surface termination by NC-AFM with atomic resolution, point defects in magnesium oxide on Ag(001) and line defects in aluminum oxide on NiAl(110), respectively, were thoroughly studied. The contact potential was determined by Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) and the electronic structure by scanning

• applied on thin oxide films beyond imaging the topography of the surface atoms. Keywords: aluminum oxide; charge state; contact potential; defects; domain boundaries; dynamic force microscopy; frequency modulation atomic force microscopy; Kelvin probe force microscopy; magnesium oxide; non-contact atomic

• defects in oxide surfaces was studied by non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Furthermore, the contact potential was determined by Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM). This technique has a high spatial resolution, thus avoiding averaging over various

Scanning probe microscopy and related methods

• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 155–157, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.18

• molecules on surfaces. AFM has evolved considerably in the last few years, where new operation modes, such as non-contact force microscopy (nc-AFM), Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) or friction force microscopy (FFM), were developed. One main focus is the high resolution capabilities of nc-AFM, which

• Microscopy, FMM: Force Modulation Microscopy, ic-AFM: intermittent contact AFM, TMAFM: tapping mode AFM, nc-AFM: non-contact AFM, KPFM: Kelvin probe force microscopy, EFM: Electrostatic force microscopy, MFM: Magnetic force microscopy, MRFM: Magnetic resonance force microscopy, NSOM: Near-field scanning