Current detection during tip-induced anodic oxidation of titanium by atomic force microscope

Titanium film with about 3nm thickness is deposited on SiO2-Si substrate with dual facing targets sputtering method. Nano-oxidation lines are fabricated on this Ti film with various biased voltages and for the first time, current monitoring is performed during the oxidation process using a contact-mode AFM. In the cases of all lines, a flow of current began immediately when the biased voltage was applied and it kept almost unchanged as each of the oxide line was growing. The level of detected currents during the fabrication of oxide lines on Ti film is in the microampere (μA) level. The detected currents increase linearly with the biased voltages, which indicates that the detected current is mainly tunneling current. Thus, the process of nano-oxidation of Ti film is controlled either by the tunneling of electrons or holes through the Ti/water interface.

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