Nanoscale dielectric properties of insulating thin films: From single point measurements to quantitative images

Dielectric relaxation (DR) has shown to be a very useful technique to study dielectric materials like polymers and other glass formers, giving valuable information about the molecular dynamics of the system at different length and time scales. However, the standard DR techniques have a fundamental limitation: they have no spatial resolution. This is of course not a problem when homogeneous and non-structured systems are analyzed but it becomes an important limitation for studying the local properties of heterogeneous and/or nano-structured materials. To overcome this constrain we have developed a novel approach that allows quantitatively measuring the local dielectric permittivity of thin films at the nanoscale by means of Electrostatic Force Microscopy. The proposed experimental method is based on the detection of the local electric force gradient at different values of the tip–sample distance. The value of the dielectric permittivity is then calculated by fitting the experimental points using the Equivalent Charge Method. Even more interesting, we show how this approach can be extended in order to obtain quantitative dielectric images of insulating thin films with an excellent lateral resolution.