Scanning probe methods for thermal and thermoelectric property measurements

The field of scanning thermal probe (SThP) microscopy was born when probes employed in scanning microscopy evolved to measure temperature and/or generate thermal gradients within investigated samples. SThP techniques are currently developed for a wide range of applications including thermal and thermoelectric properties characterization, temperature profile mapping, thermal nanomanufacturing, data storage, and topography imaging. This chapter reviews the field of thermal and thermoelectric properties characterization using scanning probe methods from ~2002 until early 2012. Developments surveyed here include thermal characterization using commercial micro− and nano−thermistor probes as well as microfabricated thermistor probes, high-resolution Seebeck and simultaneous thermal conductivity and Seebeck scanning microscopy, thermal characterization of nanostructures, devices and junctions using thermistor, thermocouple and nonspecialized probes and development of strategies for probe calibration, tip-sample heat transfer parameter calibrations, and quantitative thermal characterization. The chapter contains the following main sections: 1. Introduction; 2. Thermal Transport Characterization with Thermistor Probes; 3. Thermal Transport Characterization with Thermoelectric Probes; 4. Thermal Microscopy with Nonspecialized Tips; 5. Scanning Seebeck Coefficient Characterization; 6. Simultaneous Seebeck Coefficient and Thermal Conductivity Characterization; 7. Summary and Conclusions. Sections 2−6 discuss relevant experiments published in the last decade. Section 2 is used as the main conduit to illustrate probe heat transfer modeling approaches, probe-sample heat transfer, and thermal contact parameter calibrations, which are issues relevant for all SThP methods.