Precise Resistivity Measurement of Submicrometer-Sized Materials by Using TEM with Microprobes

Abstract

Precise electric resistivity measurements of submicrometer-sized materials have been demonstrated by using the piezodriving mechanics of two microprobes in a transmission electron microscope. By introducing two supplemental copper cables connected to a specimen, an electric circuit similar to that used in the four-terminal method was realized in a specimen holder with two microprobes. By using the proposed method, we determined the resistivity of a needle-shaped Pt-Ir specimen, whose resistance is only of the order of 0.1 , with a satisfactory precision of <2 Â 10 À4 . This method can be employed in microscopy studies on many submicrometer-sized and/or nanometer-sized materials.

Nanoscale characterization of the thermal interface resistance of a heat-sink composite material byin situTEM

“…TEM observations were performed using a 300 kV JEM-3100FEF HRTEM (Omega Filter). A twin-probe scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)-TEM holder (Nanofactory Instruments, AB) designed for various kinds of electrical measurements [14][15][16] was used to in situ assemble a nanoscale thermocouple for measuring a local temperature in TEM [17,18]. Figure 1(a) shows an image of the top view of the twin-probe STM-TEM holder.…”