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Local surface charge dissipation studied using force spectroscopy method of atomic force microscopy
Author(s) -
Revilla Reynier I.,
Yang Yan–Lian,
Wang Chen
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
surface and interface analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-9918
pISSN - 0142-2421
DOI - 10.1002/sia.5761
Subject(s) - dissipation , mica , kelvin probe force microscope , chemistry , atomic force microscopy , analytical chemistry (journal) , force spectroscopy , spectroscopy , microscopy , molecular physics , relative humidity , surface charge , conductive atomic force microscopy , atomic physics , materials science , nanotechnology , optics , thermodynamics , physics , composite material , chromatography , quantum mechanics
We propose herein a method to study local surface charge dissipation in dielectric films using force spectroscopy technique of atomic force microscopy. By using a normalization procedure and considering an analytical expression of the tip‐sample interaction force, we could estimate the characteristic time decay of the dissipation process. This approach is completely independent of the atomic force microscopy tip geometry and considerably reduces the amount of experimental data needed for the calculation compared with other techniques. The feasibility of the method was demonstrated in a freshly cleaved mica surface, in which the local charge dissipation after cleavage followed approximately a first‐order exponential law with the characteristic time decay of approximately 7–8 min at 30% relative humidity (RH) and 2–3.5 min at 48% RH. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.