The Electrical Characterization of Nanostructured Materials

A probe station, which acts as a complementary device to conductive atomic force microscopy, provides bulk electrical characterization of nanostructured materials (NSMs). The main challenge for measuring electrical behaviors of NSMs is that they often require instruments to detect signals in the nanoamp range. As a result, probe stations acquire and send signals to source meter units that can detect signals in that range.  Electrical measurements were made through a Cascade Microtech manual probe station and a Keithley 2636B source meter unit, following the four point probe method.  The purpose of this project was to develop and test a protocol for the four point probe method as applied to NSMs. To ensure the validity of the protocol, measurements were made on samples with known values, such as copper thin films, ZnO nanoshells and Au nanoshells. The result of the measured sheet resistance of copper thin films had a 6% difference compared to those in the literature. The experimentally obtained current vs voltage curves of the ZnO and Au nanoshells followed the same trend as those in the literature.