Vector Electric Field Measurement via Position-Modulated Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel variation of Kelvin probe force microscopy that allows for spatially-resolved electric field measurements by employing position modulation and lock-in detection, enhancing analysis of charge behavior in semiconducting materials.

Contribution

A new FM-KPFM technique that measures electric field components along multiple directions simultaneously using position modulation and numeric differentiation.

Findings

Successfully measured in-plane electric field vectors near trapped charges.

Demonstrated technique on organic transistor, showing practical applicability.

Simple implementation suitable for inhomogeneous samples.

Abstract

High-quality spatially-resolved measurements of electric fields are critical to understanding charge injection, charge transport, and charge trapping in semiconducting materials. Here, we report a variation of frequency-modulated Kelvin probe force microscopy (FM-KPFM) that enables spatially-resolved measurements of the electric field. We measure electric field components along multiple directions simultaneously by employing position modulation and lock-in detection in addition to numeric differentiation of the surface potential. We demonstrate the technique by recording linescans of the in-plane electric field vector in the vicinity of a patch of trapped charge in a DPh-BTBT organic field-effect transistor. This technique is simple to implement and should be especially useful for studying electric fields in spatially inhomogeneous samples like organic transistors and photovoltaic blends.