A technique to investigate inhomogeneity in materials: An arrangement of microtip and scanning electron microscope

Amorphous and polycrystalline materials show different electrical propertie s when the contact area is in the submicron range. A large number of instru ments (such as combinations of scanning electron microscope and scanning tu nneling microscope) have been employed for such an investigation. A distinc t disadvantage of these instruments is that they are rather expensive. In v iew of this, we have developed an instrumentation, which can be used to mea sure electrical behavior of any material in the submicron scale. This was a chieved by installing a simple tip-holding arm in the scanning electron mic roscope; electrical meters (picoammeter and an LCR bridge) were used to inv estigate the behavior. We have studied amorphous carbon films grown in our laboratory, using this technique. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.