Local surface conduction of the (001)-orientated SrTiO3:Nb crystal with a terrace-structured morphology has been studied by means of conductive atomic force microscope analysis. We found that the surface conductance is inhomogeneous on the atomic scale; it is high near step edges and low on terrace plateaus. The surface conductance fluctuation is susceptible to post annealing, first enhancing and then weakening while repeatedly annealed at 700 °C in vacuum. Considering the fact that the oxygen content is most sensitive to vacuum annealing for the temperatures adopted here, the inhomogeneous conductance implies the difference of oxygen vacancy content at step edges and terrace plateaus. The present work clearly demonstrated the influence of surface microstructure on physical properties, and could be helpful for the understanding of the atomic scale non-uniformity of the ultrathin films fabricated on step-featured SrTiO3 surface.
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