Studies of Field-Induced Stress on Ultrathin Layers of Silicon Dioxide on a Silicon Substrate

Abstract

We present here the results of an STM study of ultrathin silicon dioxide layers on a silicon substrate. We have found that under certain conditions, structures subjected to field-induced stress with the STM exhibit changes in their conductivity which we believe are evident in the images as the voltage of the STM is varied. We focus here on that subset of field stress parameters yielding structures which specifically exhibit this conductivity change.