Mesoscopic circuit elements such as quantum dots and quantum point contacts (QPCs) offer a uniquely controllable platform for engineering complex quantum devices, whose tunability makes them ideal for generating and investigating interacting quantum systems. However, the conductance measurements commonly employed in mesoscopics experiments are poorly suited to discerning correlated phenomena from those of single-particle origin. Here, we introduce non-equilibrium thermopower measurements as a novel approach to probing the local density of states (LDOS), offering an energy-resolved readout of many-body effects. We combine differential thermopower measurements with non-equilibrium density functional theory (DFT) to both confirm the presence of a localized state at the saddle point of a QPC and reveal secondary states that emerge wherever the reservoir chemical potential intersects the gate-induced potential barrier. These experiments establish differential thermopower imaging as a robust and general approach to exploring quantum many-body effects in mesoscopic circuits.
The thermopower and conductance of atomic-size metallic contacts have been simultaneously measured using a mechanically controllable break junction. For contacts approaching atomic dimensions, abrupt steps in the thermopower are observed which coincide with jumps in the conductance. The measured thermopower for a large number of atomic-size contacts is randomly distributed around the value for large contacts and can be either positive or negative in sign. However, it is suppressed at the quantum value of the conductance G_0 = 2e^2/h. We derive an expression that describes these results in term…
We calculate the linear response thermopower S of a quantum point contact using the Landauer formula and therefore assume non-interacting electrons. The purpose of the paper, is to compare analytically and numerically the linear thermopower S of non-interacting electrons to the low temperature approximation, S^1=(pi^2/3e)k^2 T d(ln G(mu,T=0))/dmu, and the so-called Mott expression, S^M=(pi^2/3e)k^2 T d(ln G(mu,T))/dmu, where G(mu,T) is the (temperature dependent) conductance. This comparison is important, since the Mott formula is often used to detect deviations from single-particle behavior i…
It has been shown within the Landauer single-channel approach that the presence of the 0.7 anomaly in the conductance of a ballistic microcontact and the respective plateau in the thermopower implies unusual pinning of the potential barrier height $U$ at a depth of $k_BT$ below the Fermi level $E_F$. A simple way of taking into account the effect of electron-electron interaction on the profile and temperature dependence of a smooth one-dimensional potential barrier in the lower spin degeneracy subband of the microcontact has been proposed. The calculated temperature dependences of the conducta…
We present a systematic ab-initio study of the length dependence of the thermopower in molecular junctions. The systems under consideration are small saturated and conjugated molecular chains of varying length attached to gold electrodes via a number of different binding groups. Different scenarios are observed: linearly increasing and decreasing thermopower as function of the chain length as well as positive and negative values for the contact thermopower. Also deviation from the linear behaviour is found. The trends can be explained by details of the transmission, in particular the presence,…
We find the charge and heat currents caused by a temperature difference applied to a superconducting point contact or to a quantum point contact between a superconducting and normal conductors. The results are formulated in terms of the properties of the electron scattering matrix of the quantum point contact in its normal state, and are valid at any transmission coefficient. In the low-transmission limit, the new theory provides reliable results, setting the limits for the use of the popular method of tunnel Hamiltonian.
We show in this paper that thermopower is enhanced in non-Abelian quantum Hall liquids under appropriate conditions. This is because thermopower measures entropy per electron in the clean limit, while the degeneracy and entropy associated with non-Abelian quasiparticles enhance entropy when they are present. Thus thermopower can potentially probe non-Abelian nature of the quasiparticles, and measure their quantum dimension.
We study Coulomb blockade oscillations of thermoelectric coefficients of a single electron transistor based on a quantum dot strongly coupled to one of the leads by a quantum point contact. At temperatures below the charging energy E_C the transport of electrons is dominated by strong inelastic cotunneling. In this regime we find analytic expressions for the thermopower as a function of temperature T and the reflection amplitude $r$ in the contact. In the case when the electron spins are polarized by a strong external magnetic field, the thermopower shows sinusoidal oscillations as a function …
We consider Coulomb blockade oscillations of thermoelectric coefficients of a single electron transistor based on a quantum dot strongly coupled to one of the leads. Analytic expression for the thermopower as a function of temperature $T$ and the reflection amplitude $r$ in the quantum point contact is obtained. Two regimes can be identified: $T \ll E_C|r|^2$ and $T \gg E_C |r|^2$, where $E_C$ is the charging energy of the dot. The former regime is characterized by weak logarithmic dependence of the thermopower on the reflection coefficient, in the latter the thermopower is linear in the refle…
Thermoelectric measurements for graphene ribbons are currently performed on samples that include atomic disorder via defects and irregular edges. In this work, we investigate the thermopower or Seebeck coefficient of graphene ribbons within the linear response theory and the Landauer formalism, and we consider the diffusive regime taken as a limit of the ribbon aspect ratio. We find that the thermopower and the electronic conductivity depend not only on the aspect ratio, but also on chemical potential and temperature, which are set here as key parameters. The obtained numerical results with te…
I. Introduction II. Theoretical background (Landauer-Buttiker formalism of thermo-electricity, Quantum point contacts as ideal electron waveguides, Saddle-shaped potential) III. Experiments (Thermopower, Thermal conductance, Peltier effect) IV. Conclusions
We investigate thermoelectric transport through Andreev interferometers. We show that the ratio of the thermal and the charge conductance exhibits large oscillations with the phase difference $ϕ$ between the two superconducting contacts, and that the Wiedemann-Franz law holds only when $ϕ=π$. A large average thermopower furthermore emerges whenever there is an asymmetry in the dwell times to reach the superconducting contacts. When this is the case, the thermopower is odd in $ϕ$. In contrast, when the average times to reach either superconducting contact are the same, the average thermopower i…
Using molecular dynamics simulations of many junction stretching processes we analyze the thermopower of silver (Ag), gold (Au), and platinum (Pt) atomic contacts. In all cases we observe that the thermopower vanishes on average within the standard deviation and that its fluctuations increase for decreasing minimum cross-section of the junctions. However, we find a suppression of the fluctuations of the thermopower for the s-valent metals Ag and Au, when the conductance originates from a single, perfectly transmitting channel. Essential features of the experimental results for Au, Ag, and copp…
Charge and heat transfer through a nanoscale conductor is not only determined by the transmission properties of the electrons, but can also be strongly impacted by coupling to other degrees of freedom in the environment of the conductor. Here, we analyze the influence of the electromagnetic environment on a simple, yet significant thermoelectric property, the thermopower, in the simple transport scenario of single-charge transfer across a tunnel junction. Considering both thermal and out-of-equilibrium steady-state environments, we find that the thermopower can be strongly affected by the envi…
We investigate basic properties of the thermopower (Seebeck coefficient) of phase-coherent conductors under the influence of dephasing and inelastic processes. Transport across the system is caused by a voltage bias or a thermal gradient applied between two terminals. Inelastic scattering is modeled with the aid of an additional probe acting as an ideal potentiometer and thermometer. We find that inelastic scattering reduces the conductor's thermopower and, more unexpectedly, generates a magnetic-field asymmetry in the Seebeck coefficient. The latter effect is shown to be a higher-order effect…
We consider the effect of electron-electron interaction on the electron transport through a finite length single-mode quantum wire with reflectionless contacts. The two-particle scattering events cannot alter the electric current and therefore we study the effect of three-particle collisions. Within the Boltzmann equation framework, we calculate corrections to the thermopower and conductance to the leading order in the interaction and in the length of wire $L$. We check explicitly that the three-particle collision rate is identically zero in the case of several integrable interaction potential…
We investigate the electrical conductance and thermopower of a quantum dot tunnel coupled to external leads described by an extension of the Anderson impurity model which takes into account the assisted hopping processes, i.e., the occupancy-dependence of the tunneling amplitudes. We provide analytical understanding based on scaling arguments and the Schrieffer-Wolff transformation, corroborated by detailed numerical calculations using the numerical renormalization group (NRG) method. The assisted hopping modifies the coupling to the two-particle state, which shifts the Kondo exchange coupling…
We investigate the low-temperature thermoelectric properties of three-dimensional nodal-line semimetals within the semiclassical Boltzmann formalism. Considering short-range interaction between electrons and scattering agents, we calculate the anisotropic relaxation times and then obtain the charge conductivity and thermopower along the radial and the axial directions with respect to the nodal-line plane. Increasing the carrier concentration, a topological transition in the shape of the Fermi surface from a torus into an ellipsoid signal as a sharp change in the thermopower. An adequate treatm…
We consider interaction effects in quantum point contacts on the first quantization plateau, taking into account all non momentum-conserving processes. We compute low-temperature linear and non-linear conductance, shot noise, and thermopower by perturbation theory, and show that they are consistent with experimental observations on the so-called "0.7 anomaly". The full temperature-dependent conductance is obtained from self-consistent second-order perturbation theory and approaches ~ e^2/h at higher temperatures, but still smaller than the Fermi temperature.
We study the electric and thermoelectric transport properties of correlated quantum dots coupled to two ferromagnetic leads and one superconducting electrode. Transport through such hybrid devices depends on the interplay of ferromagnetic-contact induced exchange field, superconducting proximity effect and correlations leading to the Kondo effect. We consider the limit of large superconducting gap. The system can be then modeled by an effective Hamiltonian with a particle-non-conserving term describing the creation and annihilation of Cooper pairs. By means of the full density-matrix numerical…
The thermoelectric effects in three-terminal structures with a quantum dot are considered. We propose the experimentally consistent protocol for determination of the transport coefficients in terms of the local and non-local conductances and thermopowers that can be measured in two steps, applying the `four probe technique'. This proposal is compared with other approaches discussed so far in the literature. As an example we study in detail the thermopower induced by the superconducting electrode in a subgap regime which might be useful for analysis of novel hybrid devices.
We report on the single-molecule electronic and thermoelectric properties of strategically chosen anthracene-based molecules with anchor groups capable of binding to noble metal substrates, such as gold and platinum. Specifically, we study the effect of different anchor groups, as well as quantum interference, on the electric conductance and the thermopower of gold/single-molecule/gold junctions and generally find good agreement between theory and experiment. All molecular junctions display transport characteristics consistent with coherent transport and a Fermi alignment approximately in the …
We report a method using scanning tunnelling microscope single molecular break junction to simultaneously measure and correlate the single-molecule thermopower and electrical conductance. In contrast to previously reported approaches, it does not require custom-built electronics and takes advantage of a trace-by-trace calibration of the thermal offset at the Au/Au contact, thus greatly facilitating thermoelectric measurements at the single-molecule level. We report measurements of three molecules: 1,4-di(4-(ethynyl(phenylthioacetate)) benzene, 1,8-octanedithiol, and 4,4'-bipyridine, and determ…
We consider a spin-orbit-coupled two-dimensional electron system under the influence of a thermal gradient externally applied to two attached reservoirs. We discuss the generated voltage bias (charge Seebeck effect), spin bias (spin Seebeck effect) and magnetization-dependent thermopower (magneto-Seebeck effect) in the ballistic regime of transport at linear response. We find that the charge thermopower is an oscillating function of both the spin-orbit strength and the quantum well width. We also observe that it is always negative for normal leads. We carefully compare the exact results for th…
We study a system composed of a quantum dot in contact with ferromagnetic leads, held at different temperatures. Spin analogues to the thermopower and thermoelectric figures of merit are defined and studied as a function of junction parameters. It is shown that in contrast to bulk ferromagnets, the spin thermopower coefficient in a junction can be as large as the Seebeck coefficient, resulting in a large spin figure of merit. In addition, it is demonstrated that the junction can be tuned to supply only spin current but no charge current. We also discuss experimental systems where our predictio…
Using the conformal field theory approach to the thermoelectric characteristics of fractional quantum Hall states, previously developed in Nucl. Phys. B 894 (2015) 284, we show that the thermoelectric power factor of Coulomb-blockaded islands, realized by point contacts in Fabry--Pérot interferometers in the $\mathbb{Z}_k$ parafermion Hall states, could give reliable signatures for distinguishing the topological orders of different quantum Hall states having identical electric properties. For example, while the conductance peak patterns in the Coulomb blockade regime for such states are practi…
The thermoelectric voltage of a quantum dot connected to leads is calculated using the scattering R-matrix method. Our approach takes into account a temperature gradient between the contacts beyond the linear regime. We obtain sign changes of the thermopower when varying the temperature or the chemical potential around the resonances. The influence of the coupling strength of the contacts and of the thermoelectric field on the thermoelectric voltage is discussed.
We demonstrate that in strong quantum limit the thermoelectric Peltier effect could define the longitudinal resistivity of dissipationless two-dimensional electron(hole) gas. The current results in heating(cooling) at first(second) Hall bar sample contact due to Peltier effect. At small current the contacts temperatures are different, the temperature gradient is linear on current. The voltage swing downstream the current is proportional to Peltier effect induced thermopower. As a result, nonzero longitudinal resistivity is measured in experiment. The above effect could exist in 3D case.
Interacting Tomonaga-Lüttinger liquid with impurity for interaction constant $K = 1/2$: Thermopower investigation, entropy variation and heat capacity densities associated with thermoelectric particle transport
University of Bouira(布依拉大学);Higher Normal School of Bouzareah, University of Bouira(布扎雷亚高等师范学院,布依拉大学)
We investigate the effect of contact geometry on the instantaneous thermoelectric response of a quantum dot pushed suddenly into the Kondo regime via a gate voltage using time dependent non-crossing approximation and linear response Onsager relations. We utilize graphene and metal contacts for this purpose. Instantaneous thermopower displays sinusoidal oscillations whose frequency is proportional to the energy separation between the van Hove singularity in the contact density of states and Fermi level for both cases regardless of the asymmetry factor at the onset of Kondo timescale. The amplit…
Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MtBLG) has proven to be an extremely promising new platform to realize and study a host of emergent quantum phases arising from the strong correlations in its narrow bandwidth flat band. In this regard, thermal transport phenomena like thermopower, in addition to being coveted technologically, is also sensitive to the particle-hole (PH) asymmetry, making it a crucial tool to probe the underlying electronic structure of this material. We have carried out thermopower measurements of MtBLG as a function of carrier density, temperature and magnetic field, and …
We overview nonequilibrium Green function combined with density functional theory (NEGF-DFT) modeling of independent electron and phonon transport in nanojunctions with applications focused on a new class of thermoelectric devices where a single molecule is attached to two metallic zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs) via highly transparent contacts. Such contacts make possible injection of evanescent wavefunctions from ZGNRs, so that their overlap within the molecular region generates a peak in the electronic transmission. Additionally, the spatial symmetry properties of the transverse propaga…
We find that electrons in single-wall carbon nanotubes may propagate substantial distances (tens of nanometers) under the metal contacts. We perform four-probe transport measurements of the nanotube conductance and observe significant deviations from the standard Kirchhoff's circuit rules. Most noticeably, injecting current between two neighboring contacts on one end of the nanotube, induces a non-zero voltage difference between two contacts on the other end.
We consider electron-electron interaction effects in quantum point contacts on the first quantization plateau, taking into account all scattering processes. We compute the low-temperature linear and nonlinear conductance, shot noise, and thermopower, by perturbation theory and a self-consistent nonperturbative method. On the conductance plateau, the low-temperature corrections are solely due to momentum-nonconserving processes that change the relative number of left- and right-moving electrons. This leads to a suppression of the conductance for increasing temperature or voltage. The size of th…
Absorption of energy quanta generated by quantum point contact results in the inelastic current through the double quantum dot placed nearby. In contrast to a single quantum dot, the inelastic current through the double quantum dot is sensitive to the energy dependence of the quantum point contact transmission, which can explain the experimentally observed features. We calculate the inelastic current as a function of microscopic parameters of the circuit.
We calculate the conductance of a ballistic point contact to a superconducting wire, produced by the s-wave proximity effect in a semiconductor with spin-orbit coupling in a parallel magnetic field. The conductance G as a function of contact width or Fermi energy shows plateaus at half-integer multiples of 4e^2/h if the superconductor is in a topologically nontrivial phase. In contrast, the plateaus are at the usual integer multiples in the topologically trivial phase. Disorder destroys all plateaus except the first, which remains precisely quantized, consistent with previous results for a tun…
Using the recursive Green's function technique, we study the coherent electron conductance of a quantum point contact in the presence of a scanning probe microscope tip. Images of the coherent fringe inside a quantum point contact for different widths are obtained. It is found that the conductance of a specific channel is reduced while other channels are not affected as long as the tip is located at the positions correspending to that channel. Moreover, the coherent fringe is smoothed out by increasing the temperature or the voltage across the device. Our results are consistent with the experi…
The frequency-dependent shot noise in long and narrow mesoscopic diffusive contacts is numerically calculated. The case of arbitrarily strong electron-electron scattering and zero temperature of electrodes is considered. For all voltages, the noise increases with frequency and tends to finite values. These limiting values are larger than the Poissonian noise and increase nearly as voltage to power 4/3. This allows one to experimentally determine the parameters of electron-electron interaction.
We study three-terminal thermoelectric transport in a two-dimensional Quantum Point Contact (QPC) connected to left and right electronic reservoirs, as well as a third one represented by a scanning probe tip. The latter acts as a voltage probe exchanging heat with the system but no charges on average. The thermoelectric coefficients are calculated numerically within the Landauer-Büttiker formalism in the low-temperature and linear response regimes. We find tip-induced oscillations of the local and non-local thermopowers and study their dependence on the QPC opening. If the latter is tuned on a…
We present an experiment where we tune the decoherence in a quantum interferometer using one of the simplest object available in the physic of quantum conductors : an ohmic contact. For that purpose, we designed an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer which has one of its two arms connected to an ohmic contact through a quantum point contact. At low temperature, we observe quantum interference patterns with a visibility up to 57%. Increasing the connection between one arm of the interferometer to the floating ohmic contact, the voltage probe, reduces quantum interferences as it probes the el…
We study the tunneling current between edge states of quantum Hall liquids across a single long contact region, and predict a resonance at a bias voltage set by the scale of the edge velocity. For typical devices and edge velocities associated with charged modes, this resonance occurs outside the physically accessible bias domain. However, for edge states that are expected to support neutral modes, such as the $ν={2/3}$, and $ν={5/2}$ Pfaffian and anti-Pfaffian states, the neutral velocity can be orders of magnitude smaller than the charged mode and if so the resonance would be accessible. The…
We report herein the pressure dependent thermal contact resistance (Rc) between Wollaston wire thermal probe and samples which is evaluated within the framework of an analytical model. This work presents heat transfer between the Wollaston wire thermal probe and samples at nanoscale for different air pressure ranging from 1 Pa to 10e5 Pa. We make use of a scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) for the thermal analysis of two samples, fused silica (SiO2) and Titanium (Ti), with different thermal conductivities. The thermal probe's output voltage difference (deltaV) between out-off contact output vo…
We show an electron interferometer between a quantum point contact (QPC) and a scanning gate microscope (SGM) tip in a two-dimensional electron gas. The QPC and SGM tip act as reflective barriers of a lossy cavity; the conductance through the system thus varies as a function of the distance between the QPC and SGM tip. We characterize how temperature, electron wavelength, cavity length, and reflectivity of the QPC barrier affect the interferometer. We report checkerboard interference patterns near the QPC and, when injecting electrons above or below the Fermi energy, effects of dephasing.
We provide a theoretical study of the conductance response of systems based on graphene nanoribbon to the potential of a scanning probe. The study is based on the Landauer approach for the tight-binding Hamiltonian with an implementation of the quantum transmitting boundary method and covers homogenous nanoribbons, their asymmetric narrowing and quantum point contacts of various profiles. The response maps at low Fermi energies resolve formation of n-p junctions induced by the probe potential and a presence of zigzag-armchair segments of the edges for inhomogeneous ribbons. For an asymmetric n…
The impact of the intrinsic time-dependent fluctuations in the electrical resistance at the graphene-metal interface or the contact noise, on the performance of graphene field effect transistors, can be as adverse as the contact resistance itself, but remains largely unexplored. Here we have investigated the contact noise in graphene field effect transistors of varying device geometry and contact configuration, with carrier mobility ranging from 5,000 to 80,000$~$cm$^{2}$V$^{-1}$s$^{-1}$. Our phenomenological model for contact noise due to current crowding in purely two dimensional conductors,…
We analyze the behavior of the four-terminal resistance, relative to the two-terminal resistance of an interacting quantum wire with an impurity, taking into account the invasiveness of the voltage probes. We consider a one-dimensional Luttinger model of spinless fermions for the wire. We treat the coupling to the voltage probes perturbatively, within the framework of non-equilibrium Green function techniques. Our investigation unveils the combined effect of impurities, electron-electron interactions and invasiveness of the probes on the possible occurrence of negative resistance.
We study graphene quantum point contacts (QPC) and imaging of the backscattering of the Fermi level wave function by potential introduced by a scanning probe. We consider both etched single-layer QPCs as well as the ones formed by bilayer patches deposited at the sides of the monolayer conducting channel using an atomistic tight binding approach. A computational method is developed to effectively simulate an infinite graphene plane outside the QPC using a computational box of a finite size. We demonstrate that in spite of the Klein phenomenon interference due to the backscattering at a circula…
We consider a Josephson junction hosting a Kramers pair of helical edge states of a quantum spin Hall bar in contact with a normal-metal probe. In this hybrid system, the orbital phase induced by a small magnetic field threading the junction known as Doppler shift (DS), combines with the conventional Josephson phase difference and originates an effect akin to a Zeeman field in the spectrum. As a consequence, when a temperature bias is applied to the superconducting terminals, a thermoelectric current is established in the normal probe. We argue that this purely non-local thermoelectric effect …
We propose an experiment to probe the unconventional quantum statistics of quasi-particles in fractional quantum Hall states by measurement of current noise. The geometry we consider is that of a Hall bar where two quantum point contacts introduce two interfering amplitudes for back-scattering. Thermal fluctuations of the number of quasi-particles enclosed between the two point contacts introduce current noise, which reflects the statistics of the quasi-particles. We analyze abelian $ν=1/q$ states and the non-abelian $ν=5/2$ state.
We derive Bardeen-like expressions for the transmission probabilities between two multi-probe mesoscopic conductors coupled by a weak tunneling contact. We emphasize especially the dual role of a weak coupling contact as a current source and sink and analyze the magnetic field symmetry. In the limit of a point-like tunneling contact the transmission probability becomes a product of local, partial density of states of the two mesoscopic conductors. We present expressions for the partial density of states in terms of functional derivatives of the scattering matrix with respect to the local poten…
Visible and infra-red light emitted at a Ag-Ag(111) junction has been investigated from tunneling to single atom contact conditions with a scanning tunneling microscope. The light intensity varies in a highly nonlinear fashion with the conductance of the junction and exhibits a minimum at conductances close to the conductance quantum. The data are interpreted in terms of current noise at optical frequencies, which is characteristic of partially open transport channels.
We measure power dissipation in phase change memory (PCM) devices by scanning Joule ex-pansion microscopy (SJEM) with ~50 nm spatial and 0.2 K temperature resolution. The temperature rise in the Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) is dominated by Joule heating, but at the GST-TiW contacts it is a combination of Peltier and current crowding effects. Comparison of SJEM and electrical characterization with simulations of the PCM devices uncovers a thermopower ~350 uV/K for 25 nm thick films of face centered-cubic crystallized GST, and contact resistance ~2.0 x 10^-8 Ohm-m2. Knowledge of such nanoscale Joule, Peltier…
We use spatial spin separation by a magnetic focusing technique to probe the polarization of quantum point contacts. The point contacts are fabricated from p-type GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. A finite polarization is measured in the low-density regime, when the conductance of a point contact is tuned to <2e^2/h. Polarization is stronger in samples with a well defined ``0.7 structure''
We use a cooled Scanning Probe Microscope (SPM) to electron motion in nanoscale devices. The charged tip of the SPM is raster scanned at a constant height above the surface as the conductance of the device is measured. The image charge scatters electrons away, changing the path of electrons through the sample.1-3 Using this technique, we have imaged cyclotron orbits3 for ballistic hBN-graphene-hBN devices that flow between two narrow contacts in the magnetic focusing regime. Here we present an analysis of our magnetic focusing imaging results based on the effects of the tip-created charge dens…
We have probed the current-phase relation of an atomic contact placed with a tunnel junction in a small superconducting loop. The measurements are in quantitative agreement with the predictions of a resistively shunted SQUID model in which the Josephson coupling of the contact is calculated using the independently determined transmissions of its conduction channels.
Electromechanical response of solids underpins image formation mechanism of several scanning probe microscopy techniques including the piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) and electrochemical strain microscopy (ESM). While the theory of linear piezoelectric and ionic responses are well developed, the contributions of quadratic effects including electrostriction and capacitive tip-surface forces to measured signal remain poorly understood. Here we analyze the electrostrictive and capacitive contributions to the PFM and ESM signals and discuss the implications of the dielectric tip-surface gap o…