Issue 15, 2023

Nanoscale temperature sensing of electronic devices with calibrated scanning thermal microscopy

Abstract

Heat dissipation threatens the performance and lifetime of many electronic devices. As the size of devices shrinks to the nanoscale, we require spatially and thermally resolved thermometry to observe their fine thermal features. Scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) has proven to be a versatile measurement tool for characterizing the temperature at the surface of devices with nanoscale resolution. SThM can obtain qualitative thermal maps of a device using an operating principle based on a heat exchange process between a thermo-sensitive probe and the sample surface. However, the quantification of these thermal features is one of the most challenging parts of this technique. Developing reliable calibration approaches for SThM is therefore an essential aspect to accurately determine the temperature at the surface of a sample or device. In this work, we calibrate a thermo-resistive SThM probe using heater-thermometer metal lines with different widths (50 nm to 750 nm), which mimic variable probe-sample thermal exchange processes. The sensitivity of the SThM probe when scanning the metal lines is also evaluated under different probe and line temperatures. Our results reveal that the calibration factor depends on the probe measuring conditions and on the size of the surface heating features. This approach is validated by mapping the temperature profile of a phase change electronic device. Our analysis provides new insights on how to convert the thermo-resistive SThM probe signal to the scanned device temperature more accurately.

Graphical abstract: Nanoscale temperature sensing of electronic devices with calibrated scanning thermal microscopy

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Janv. 2023
Accepted
23 Marts 2023
First published
23 Marts 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2023,15, 7139-7146

Nanoscale temperature sensing of electronic devices with calibrated scanning thermal microscopy

T. Swoboda, N. Wainstein, S. Deshmukh, Ç. Köroğlu, X. Gao, M. Lanza, H. Hilgenkamp, E. Pop, E. Yalon and M. Muñoz Rojo, Nanoscale, 2023, 15, 7139 DOI: 10.1039/D3NR00343D

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements