Contact Electrification on Thin SrTiO3 Film by Atomic Force Microscope

Abstract

Recently, we achieved reproducible and controllable contact electrification with a modified atomic force microscope (AFM). In the present paper, we report on the application of this novel microscopic method to investigate dissipation and spatial distribution of contact-electrified 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 been deposited using this technique. We also succeeded in depositing two adjacent dots with arbitrary charge signs. Thus, its potential capability for application to charge storage was clarified experimentally.