Theory of scanning nonlinear dielectric microscopy and application to quantitative evaluation

A theory for scanning nonlinear dielectric microscopy (SNDM) and its applic ation to the quantitative evaluation of the linear and nonlinear dielectric constants of dielectric materials are described. A general theorem for the capacitance variation under an applied electric field is derived and a cap acitance variation susceptibility S-n1 is defined. The results show that th e sensitivity of the SNDM probe does not change, even if a tip with a small er radius is selected to obtain a finer resolution and that SNDM has an ato mic scale resolution. Using the theoretical results and the data taken by S NDM, the quantitative linear and nonlinear dielectric properties of several dielectric materials were successfully determined. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scien ce Ltd. All rights reserved.