Conductance fluctuation and degeneracy in nanocontact between a conductive AFM tip and a granular surface under small-load conditions

Conductive-tip atomic force microscope (c-AFM) has been extensively used in measuring electrical properties of surface nanostructures, but the electrical conduction in c-AFM tip-sample contacts in nanometer scale is not well understood. In the present work, we experimentally investigated the electrical properties of the nanocontact between a W2C-coated c-AFM tip and granular gold film under small-load (∼5 nN) at ambient air conditions. We found that under a constant bias voltage (10 V), the electrical current passing through the tip-sample junction at fixed location of sample surface dramatically fluctuated and degenerated. By quantitatively estimating the mechanical and electrical aspects of the nanocontact, we explained the observed phenomena as mechanical instabilities, electron tunneling transport and atomic rearrangements at the contact junction. We think that our results are important for the realistic application of c-AFM in nanoelectronic measurement.