Advanced SPM techniques: methods and applications

Initially developed for morphological imaging, scanning probe microscopy (SPM) has been used as a platform to develop different advanced techniques for the nanoscale characterization and mapping with nanometer lateral resolution of different physical (e.g., mechanical, electric, magnetic, optical…) properties. The development of these techniques has enabled amazing new possibilities in the field of nanocharacterization in terms of both the accessible parameters and materials. Indeed, SPM-based techniques allow the mapping of mechanical properties (e.g., elastic or viscoelastic moduli, hardness, friction coefficient, stiffness…) as well as electric (e.g., conductivity, work function, dielectric constast…), optical, thermal, or magnetic. Overall, these properties can be studied for a wide variety of materials, e.g., semiconductors, ceramics, as well as polymers, biological materials, cells and tissues. Experiments can be performed in different environments, e.g., air, vacuum, or liquid, and at different and controllable condition of temperature and humidity. Fields of application vary from microelectronics, energy, nano-bio-medicine, agri-food sectors. This session is particularly focused, among other topics, on SPM-based methods for electric and thermal methods for semiconductors and microelectronic devices.