TY - GEN

T1 - Seeing the invisible - ultrasonic force microscopy for true subsurface elastic imaging of semiconductor nanostructures with nanoscale resolution

AU - Kolosov, Oleg

AU - Dinelli, Franco

AU - Henini, M.

AU - Krier, Anthony

AU - Hayne, Manus

AU - Pingue, Pasqualnthonio

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Scanning probe microscopes (SPM’s) are indispensable in modern nanoscale science but ability of SPM’s to look below the surface is unavoidably limited. In spite of developments based on Ultrasonic Force Microscopy (UFM) a true subsurface imaging in stiff solid state nanostructures has yet to be reliably demonstrated. Moreover, some misconceptions still exist as to how the wave propagation of ultrasonic waves contributes to the imaging. In this paper we produce first unambiguous UFM imaging of internal morphology of two high stiffness solid state nanostructures - 50 nm thick graphite slabs and iii-v InAs/GaAs semiconductor quantum dot structures under atomically flat GaAs capping layer. Furthermore, we show that the imaging mechanism in reported so far subsurface imaging methods is indeed the elastic field produced by the indention of dynamically stiffened cantilever-tip system, with detection due to the nonlinear tip-surface interaction, and lateral resolution for subsurface imaging is on the same order as the depth of subsurface feature. We show that phase information available in HFM for subsurface mapping produces only a minute correction due to a very large scale difference of ultrasonic wavelengths (~mm) and the imaged volumes (~100 nm). http: www.nano-science.com

AB - Scanning probe microscopes (SPM’s) are indispensable in modern nanoscale science but ability of SPM’s to look below the surface is unavoidably limited. In spite of developments based on Ultrasonic Force Microscopy (UFM) a true subsurface imaging in stiff solid state nanostructures has yet to be reliably demonstrated. Moreover, some misconceptions still exist as to how the wave propagation of ultrasonic waves contributes to the imaging. In this paper we produce first unambiguous UFM imaging of internal morphology of two high stiffness solid state nanostructures - 50 nm thick graphite slabs and iii-v InAs/GaAs semiconductor quantum dot structures under atomically flat GaAs capping layer. Furthermore, we show that the imaging mechanism in reported so far subsurface imaging methods is indeed the elastic field produced by the indention of dynamically stiffened cantilever-tip system, with detection due to the nonlinear tip-surface interaction, and lateral resolution for subsurface imaging is on the same order as the depth of subsurface feature. We show that phase information available in HFM for subsurface mapping produces only a minute correction due to a very large scale difference of ultrasonic wavelengths (~mm) and the imaged volumes (~100 nm). http: www.nano-science.com

KW - Subsurface nanoscale imaging; nanostructure; nanotechnology; scanning probe microscopy; SPM; UFM; AFM; ultrasonic force miocroscopy

KW - nanostructure

KW - nanotechnology

KW - scanning probe microscopy

KW - SPM

KW - UFM

KW - AFM

KW - ultrasonic force miocroscopy

M3 - Conference contribution/Paper

SN - 9781466562745

SP - 24

EP - 26

BT - NSTI-Nanotech 2012

PB - CRC PRESS-TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

CY - Santa Clara, USA

ER -