Simultaneous resistance and capacitance cartography by conducting probe atomic force microscopy in contact mode

A promising technique derived from conducting probe atomic force microscopy is presented. It gives the local resistance and capacitance cartographies of a surface simultaneously with the classical height image. Preliminary investigations on a contaminated gold sample illustrate that it is possible to obtain contrasted triple images. Six decades of capacitance values can be reached, from 10−16 to 10−10F, with resistance measurements ranging over ten decades. Great care was taken to verify the accuracy of the absolute capacitance values. For this purpose, specific calibration samples of well-defined geometry were elaborated and carefully tested, and the experimental results were compared with finite elements calculations.