Nanoscale Schottky behavior of Au islands on TiO2 probed with conductive atomic force microscopy

Abstract

Electrical properties of nanoscale Au islands on n-type TiO2, which form a Schottky junction nanodiode, have been investigated using conductive atomic force microscopy at ultra-high vacuum. The Au islands were formed using colloidal self-assembled patterns on an n-type TiO2 semiconductor film using the Langmuir-Blodgett process. Characteristics of the nanoscale Schottky contact were determined by fitting the local current-voltage plot to the thermionic emission equation, which reveals the Schottky barrier height and the ideality factor of the Au islands on n-type TiO2, and were compared with electrical characters of the conventional macroscale diode.