A study of the spatial variation of electric field in highly resistive metal films by scanning tunneling potentiometry

Ramaswamy, G and Raychaudhuri, AK and Gupta, Das K and Sambandamurthy, G (1998) A study of the spatial variation of electric field in highly resistive metal films by scanning tunneling potentiometry. In: Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing, 66 (7). pp. 435-439.

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Abstract

Electronic transport in highly resistive (but metallic) thin platinum films (_ 10 nm) deposited by electronbeam evaporation has been studied by scanning tunneling microscopy and scanning tunneling potentiometry (STP). The films have an average grain size of _ 10 nm. On this scale transport through the film is very inhomogeneous. Scattering from grain boundaries (GBs) results in large variations in the local potential resulting in fields as high as 104–105 V=cm located near the GB. The reflection coefficient Rg of electrons at a GB has values between 0.5–0.7 as determined from the STP data. This can be compared to an average hRgi _ 0:9 obtained from an analysis of the bulk resistivity data taken over the temperature range 4:2K<T<300 K.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing
Publisher:	Springer-Verlag
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to Springer-Verlag
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	04 Sep 2004
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:15
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/1393

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