Nanoscale Thermal Response in ZnO Varistors by Atomic Force Microscopy

We report the application of customer-built scanning thermal microscopy （SThM） based on a commercial atomic force microscope to investigate local thermal inhomogeneity of ZnO varistors. The so-called 3ω method, generally used for measuring macroscale thermal conductivity, is set up and integrated with an atomic force microscope to probe the nanoseale thermal property. Remarkably, thermal contrasts of ZnO varistors are firstly imaged by the SThM, indicating the uniform distribution of spinel phases at triple points. The frequency-dependent thermal signal of ZnO varistors is also studied to present quantitative evaluation of local thermal conductivity of the sample.     

Local Piezoresponse and Thermal Behavior of Ferroelastic Domains in Multiferroic BiFeO3 Thin Films by Scanning Piezo-Thermal Microscopy

A dual probe, i.e., high resolution scanning piezo-thermal microscopy, is developed and employed to characterize the local piezoresponse and thermal behaviors of ferroelastic domains in multiferroic BiFeO3 thin films. Highly in- homogeneous piezoelectric responses are found in the thin film. A remarkably local thermal transformation across ferroelastic domain walls is clearly demonstrated by the quantitative 3w signals related to thermal conductivity. Different polarization oriented ferroelastic domains are found to exhibit different local thermal responses. The underlying mechanism is possibly associated with the inhomogeneous stress distribution across the ferroelastic domain wails, leading to different phonons scattering contributions in the BiFeO3 thin film.     

Acoustic Imaging Frequency Dynamics of Ferroelectric Domains by Atomic Force Microscopy

We report the acoustic imaging frequency dynamics of ferroelectric domains by low-frequency acoustic probe microscopy based on the commercial atomic force microscopy. It is found that ferroelectric domain could be firstly visualized at lower frequency down to 0.5 kHz by AFM-based acoustic microscopy. The frequency-dependent acoustic signal revealed a strong acoustic response in the frequency range from 7kHz to 10 kHz, and reached maximum at 8.1 kHz. The acoustic contrast mechanism can be ascribed to the different elastic response of ferroelectric microstructures to local elastic stress fields, which is induced by the acoustic wave transmitting in the sample when the piezoelectric transducer is vibrating and exciting acoustic wave under ac electric fields due to normal piezoelectric effects.     

An Alternating-Current Voltage Modulated Thermal Probe Technique for Local Seebeck Coefficient Characterization

Nanostructured and nanocomposite thermoelec- tric materials have recently attracted a great deal of attention due to the optimization of thermal and electrical transports for high thermoelectric performance The initial ideas for the applica- tions of nano-structures in thermoelectric materials are that the lattice thermal conductivity can be de- pressed by the scattering of nano-particles or nano- boundaries as well as the enhanced electron density of states at the Fermi level. The latter is expected to enhance Seebeck coefficients due to the fact that the low energy carriers can be filtered by nano-sized grain boundaries. Lowered thermal conductivity and enhanced thermoelectric figure of merit have been ob- served in lots of bulk materials with nanostructures or nano-impurities. However, the thermal and electrical transports in these nano-materials are usually mea- sured by normal commercial systems, in which only the statistical values of the transports are obtained. The characterization of local thermoelectric parame- ters still remains a challenging task at the submicro, even nanometer level as a powerful tool for Scanning probe microscopy nanostructure imaging and local properties characterization, has become a promis- ing technique for measuring local thermal and electri- cal properties, like scanning tunneling microscopy, scanning thermal microscopy, and scanning Joule expansion microscopy. Recent work has demon- strated simultaneously determined the thermal con- ductivity and Seebeek coefficient of Bi2Se3 thin film by a microprobe technique.