We observed the surface potential of silicon pn junctions using a Kelvin probe force microscope whose sensitivity was about five times better than that of a conventional one. It was achieved by three major improvements: electrostatic force detection using the second cantilever resonance, cantilever Q-value enhancement by operating in a vacuum, and direct cantilever resonance frequency detection using the frequency modulation technique. It was demonstrated that the surface potential of the pn junctions made by thermal diffusion varies gradually compared to those made by ion implantation, possibly reflecting their gradual dopant concentration profile.

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The average magnetic moment per Fe atom for a single-phase, single-crystal Fe16N2(001) film epitaxially grown on a GaAs(001) substrate by molecular beam epitaxy has been confirmed to be 3.5μB at room temperature by using a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and Rutherford backscattering. The value was in good agreement with that obtained by using a VSM and by measuring the film thickness (3.3μB per Fe atom). The saturation magnetization 4πMs has been found to increase with decreasing temperature, obeying T3/2 law at lower temperatures. The slope was steeper than that of a pure Fe film, suggesting a lower exchange constant for Fe16N2. The g factor for Fe16N2 has been accurately measured to be 2.17 by using ferromagnetic resonance with changing frequencies of 35.5–115 GHz, which is not unusual compared with the g factor of 2.16 for pure Fe. The resistivity for Fe16N2 has been measured to be around 30 μΩ cm at room temperature compared with 10 μΩ cm for pure Fe and decreases linearly with decreasing temperature. The behavior was that for normal metal and nothing unusual was seen. The anomalous Hall resistivity for Fe16N2 was 4×10−7 V cm/A, which is about three times as large as that for pure Fe. The relationship between the giant magnetic moment and the anomalous Hall resistivity has not been clarified yet.

To investigate whether field evaporation of gold atoms is responsible for dot formation in an atomic force microscope (AFM) gold-coated tip/vacuum/SiO2 film/p-type Si substrate configuration, we have performed elemental analysis of the dots and measured the dependence of the threshold voltage on SiO2 thickness with both polarities for the dot formation. The experiments demonstrate that it is feasible to form gold dots on SiO2 films 17–107 Å thick by adjusting the pulsed voltages applied to the gold-coated AFM tip. Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) shows that the dots include gold. The threshold voltages increase almost linearly with the SiO2 thickness. Furthermore, the voltage with negative polarity is lower than that with positive polarity. These results provide evidence that the dot formation on the SiO2 film using AFM occurs by field evaporation.

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