Advances In Scanning Probe Microscopy For Imaging Functionality On The Nanoscale

Advances in Scanning Probe Microscopy for Imaging Functionality on the Nanoscale

Scanning Probe Microscopy of Functional Materials

The goal of this book is to provide a general overview of the rapidly developing field of novel scanning probe microscopy (SPM) techniques for characterization of a wide range of functional materials, including complex oxides, biopolymers, and semiconductors. Many recent advances in condensed matter physics and materials science, including transport mechanisms in carbon nanostructures and the role of disorder on high temperature superconductivity, would have been impossible without SPM. The unique aspect of SPM is its potential for imaging functional properties of materials as opposed to structural characterization by electron microscopy. Examples include electrical transport and magnetic, optical, and electromechanical properties. By bringing together critical reviews by leading researchers on the application of SPM to to the nanoscale characterization of functional materials properties, this book provides insight into fundamental and technological advances and future trends in key areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Scanning Probe Microscopy

Techniques of nanoscale functional imaging and spectroscopy have blossomed since the invention of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) tools, starting with scanning tunneling microscopy in the early 1980s. The ability to resolve topographical features with nanoscale—sometimes atomic—precision has revolutionized our understanding of molecules, matter, and living systems. These observations have led scientists to pose increasingly more complex questions about properties beyond morphology and their evolution upon external stimuli. Overall, SPM-based schemes provide versatile ways to probe structural, electrical, mechanical, and chemical properties of materials at the nanoscale. Getting started with SPM can be intimidating. This digital primer aims to provide undergraduate and graduate students majoring in various fields of science and engineering with a practical guide to grasp essential concepts and principles related to SPM image and spectra formation and their interpretation. This guide may also be helpful to researchers who are considering new ways of evaluating nanoscale properties of materials, devices, or living systems as applicable to their respective fields. Because of the extensive literature on the developments and applications of SPM, it was impossible to comprehensively cover all aspects of the field. Hence, deliberate choices were made to emphasize some techniques that have not been discussed as extensively in the literature but hold great promise to understand complex systems at the nanoscale.