CONTACT ELECTRIFICATION ON THIN SRTIO3 FILM BY ATOMIC-FORCE MICROSCOPE

Recently, we achieved reproducible and controllable contact electrific ation with a modified atomic force microscope (AFM). In the present pa per, we report on the application of this novel microscopic method to investigate dissipation and spatial distribution of contact-electrifie d charges on SrTiO3 (STO) thin films with large dielectric constants. A charge dot with a Full width at half-maximum as small as 70 nm has b een deposited using this technique. We also succeeded in depositing tw o adjacent dots with arbitrary charge signs. Thus, its potential capab ility for application to charge storage was clarified experimentally.