Thermal mapping of a scanning thermal microscopy tip

Scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) is a very promising technique for local investigation of temperature and thermal properties of nanostructures with great application potential in contemporary nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. In order to increase the localization of SThM measurements, the size of probes has recently substantially decreased, which results in novel types of SThM probes manufactured with the use of modern silicon microfabrication technology. Quantitative SThM measurements with these probes need methods, which enable to assess the quality of thermal contact between the probe and the investigated surface. In this paper we propose a tip thermal mapping (TThM) procedure, which is used to estimate experimentally the distribution of power dissipated by the tip of an SThM probe. We also show that the proposed power dissipation model explains the results of active-mode SThM measurements and that the TThM procedure is reversible for a given probe and sample.