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Improving the electrical performance of a conductive atomic force microscope with a logarithmic current-to-voltage converter

2008; American Institute of Physics; Volume: 79; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1063/1.2952058

1527-2400

L. Aguilera, Mario Lanza, M. Porti, J. Grifoll, M. Nafrı́a, X. Aymerich,

Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures

A new configuration of conductive atomic force microscope (CAFM) is presented, which is based in a standard CAFM where the typical I-V converter has been replaced by a log I-V amplifier. This substitution extends the current dynamic range from 1-100 pA to 1 pA-1 mA. With the broadening of the current dynamic range, the CAFM can access new applications, such as the reliability evaluation of metal-oxide-semiconductor gate dielectrics. As an example, the setup has been tested by analyzing breakdown spots induced in SiO2 layers.