A dynamic contact mode operation of electrostatic-force microscopy ͑EFM͒ with an ac modulation has been developed and used to investigate the domain strucutre and dynamics of a triglycine sulfate single crystal. Well-separated topographic and domain contrast images have been obtained by detecting the force instead of the force gradient in the dynamic contact mode operation of EFM. Surface charge density and the anisotropic domain wall thickness have been measured. The evolution of domains embedded in an oppositely polarized larger domain indicates the existence of a significant interaction between domains of the same polarity.

We show how to measure dynamic specific heat and thermal conductivity of a solid or liquid sample using the 3ω technique, which is an ac-modulation method where we use a heater simultaneously as the sensor. By varying the width of the heater relative to the thermal decay length, one can choose the proper regime to measure thermal conductivity or specific heat. The technique is applied to window glass and the results confirm the validity of the method. Experimental results for potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystal demonstrate the first-order transition at the Curie point, and the dynamic specific heat of supercooled liquid potassium–calcium nitrate is shown.

The thermal conductivity of sputtered amorphous-Ge2Sb2Te5 (a-GST)/ZnS:SiO2 and crystalline-Ge2Sb2Te5 (c-GST)/ZnS:SiO2 multilayer films has been measured in the temperature range between 50 and 300 K using the 3ω method. The conductivity data in the direction of the cross plane of the films showed lower values than the series conductance of the constituent layers, which was calculated from the thermal conductivity of thick a-GST, c-GST, and ZnS:SiO2 films measured independently. From the reduction in the multilayer thermal conductivity, the thermal boundary resistance at the interface between GST and ZnS:SiO2 films was calculated. The boundary resistance in the c-GST multilayer was lower than that for the a-GST case in the whole measured temperature region.

The electrical properties of sol–gel deposited BaTiO3 thin films on Si(100) and SiO2-buffered Si(100) substrates were investigated. The dielectric constant measured as a function of frequency was fitted using the space charge relaxation model. The effective dielectric constant (ε') and dissipation factor (tan δ) were determined in the accumulation region from the results of capacitance–voltage ( C–V ) measurements at room temperature, at 1 MHz. Values of 23–185 and 0.02–0.08 were determined, respectively. The density of the interfacial surface states (N ss), calculated from the width of the memory window of the C–V curve, was of the order of 1011–1012 eV-1 cm-2. The leakage current densities for BaTiO3 films deposited on Si and SiO2-buffered Si substrates were 22–57 nA/ cm2 and 0.85–4 nA/ cm2, respectively, at an applied field of 100 kV/cm. The dielectric breakdown strength exceeded 1 MV/cm for all films.

The mixed crystal Rb & "(NH4)"HzAs04 of ferroelectric RbH&As04 and antiferroelectric NH4HzAs04 has been investigated for several values of x by measuring the dielectric constant along the a and c axis in the temperature range from 30 to 200 K. The phase boundary between the ferroelectric phase and the proton glass state is found to be between 0.13 and 0.20, and a similar boundary between the proton glass state and the antiferroelectric phase is observed to be located between 0.44 and 0.49. For samples with 0.23~x~0.44, the dielectric data can be scaled using the Vogel-Fulcher law with a static freezing temperature To. From our experimental results, we construct a phase diagram of Rb, "(NH4)"H&As04.