No Access Submitted: 12 October 2010 Accepted: 01 March 2011 Published Online: 21 April 2011
Journal of Applied Physics 109, 084324 (2011); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3573484
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  • 1Bruker-Nano Inc., 112 Robin Hill Road, Santa Barbara, California 93117, USA
  • 2Physikalisches Institut, Universität Göttingen, Friedrich-Hund Platz 1, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany
  • 3Department of Materials, Saarland University, Campus D 2.2, D-66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
  • a)Electronic mail: .

We describe a technique to image subsurface structures using atomic force acoustic microscopy operated at 1 GHz. The devices to be imaged are insonified with 1 GHz ultrasonic waves which are amplitude-modulated at a fraction or multiple frequency of cantilever contact resonance. The transmitted signals are demodulated by the nonlinear tip–surface interaction, enabling one to image defects in the device based on their ultrasonic scattering power which is determined by the ultrasonic frequency, the acoustic mismatch between the elastic properties of the host material and the defects, by their geometry, and by diffraction effects.
We thank Dr. Craig Prater, now at Anasys Instruments, Santa Barbara, CA, for his early participation in the experiments described here, Professor Eric Lesniewska-Choquet, France, and Natalia Erina and Weijie Wang, both with Bruker-Nano, for preparing the samples. We thank Professor K. Samwer, University of Göttingen, for his critical reading of the manuscript. W. A. thanks Professor U. Hartmann, Experimental Physics, Saarland University, and Professor U. Kreibig, Physics Center, RWTH Aachen, for helpful discussions. Last but not least, we gratefully acknowledge financial support by ATP contract No. 70NANB7H7005.
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