Emerging interface dipole versus screening effect in copolymer/metal nano-layered systems

Despite to the importance on the charge carrier injection and transport at organic/metal interface, there is yet an incomplete estimation of the various contribution to the overall dipole. This work shows how the mapping of the surface potential performed by Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) allows the direct observation of the interface dipole within an organic/metal multilayered structure. Moreover, we show how the sub-surface sensitivity of the KPFM depends on the thickness and surface coverage of the metallic layer. This paper proposes a way to control the surface potential of the exposed layer of an hybrid layered system by controlling the interface dipole at the organic/metal interface as a function of the nanometer scale thickness and the surface coverage of the metallic layer. We obtained a layered system constituted by repeated sequence of a copolymer film, poly(n-butylacrylate)-b-polyacrilic acid, and Au layer. We compared the results obtained by means of scanning probe microscopy technique with the results of the KPFM technique, that allows us to obtain high-contrast images of the underlying layer of copolymer behind a typical threshold, on the nanoscale, of the thickness of the metal layer. We considered the effect of the morphology of the gold layer on the covered area at different thicknesses by using the scanning electron microscopy technique. This finding represents a step forward towards the using of dynamic atomic force microscopy based characterization to explore the electrical properties of the sub-surface states of layered nanohybrid, that is a critical point for nanohybrid applications in sensors and energy storage devices.