Thermoelectric stack sample cooling modification of a commercial atomic force microscopy

• Published in: Ultramicroscopy Vol. 196; pp. 186 - 191
• Main Authors: del Moral, A., González-Rosillo, J.C., Gómez, A., Puig, T., Obradors, X.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.01.2019
• Subjects: Atomic Force Microscopy; Cooling; Current sensing atomic force microscopy; Instrumentation; Peltier; Sample cooling; Scanning probe microscopy; Sample cooling; Cooling; Scanning probe microscopy; Instrumentation; Atomic Force Microscopy; Current sensing atomic force microscopy; Peltier
• ISSN: 0304-3991; 1879-2723
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2018.10.014

•Modification of a commercial microscopy to enable high range variable measurements.•Multi thermoelectric element cooler as a solution to overcome easy implementation of low temperature experiments.•Resistive switching temperature dependence using a commercial microscopy.•Liquid cooling available for AFM and compatible with nanometer-scale noise levels. Enabling temperature dependent experiments in Atomic Force Microscopy is of great interest to study materials and surface properties at the nanoscale. By studying Curie temperature of multiferroic materials, temperature dependent phase transitions on crystalline structures or resistive switching phenomena are only a few examples of applications. We present an equipment capable of cooling samples using a thermoelectric cooling stage down to −61.4 °C in a 15 × 15 mm2 sample plate. The equipment uses a four-unit thermoelectric stack to achieve maximum temperature range, with low electrical and mechanical noise. The equipment is installed into a Keysight 5500LS Atomic Force Microscopy maintaining its compatibility with all Electrical and Mechanical modes of operation. We study the contribution of the liquid cooling pump vibration into the cantilever static deflection noise and the temperature dependence of the cantilever deflection. A La0.7Sr0.3MnO3-y thin film sample is used to demonstrate the performance of the equipment and its usability by analyzing the resistive switching phenomena associated with this oxide perovskite. [Display omitted]