Probing surface microthermal properties by scanning thermal microscopy

Scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) was used for probing surface microthermal properties of a wide range of materials from polymers to metals. We demonstrated that SThM measurements in contact mode can provide unique capabilities of unambiguous measurements of localized thermal conductivity of a wide variety of surfaces with sensitivity better than 0.05 W m(-1) K-1 and lateral resolution in the range from 0.03 mu m for hard materials to 1 mu m for compliant materials. Variation of surface microthermal conductivity correlates fairly well with known bulk values for hard materials. For compliant materials, significant contribution of local deformation to measured values of thermal response is noted.