Bakkali, HichamDominguez, Manuel2025-02-052025-02-052025-03-01Hicham Bakkali, Manuel Dominguez, Unveiling single-electron tunneling in nanogranular ultrathin films for sensor applications via hyperspectral conductive AFM, Materials Letters, Volume 382, 2025, 137932, ISSN 0167-577X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2024.1379320167-577X (print)1873-4979 (online)https://hdl.handle.net/10115/74977We would like to thank Dr M. Febvre (Bruker) for his support with the sample measurements. M.D. acknowledged the support by the Spanish “Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades” under project EQC2018-004704-PThis study maps the electrical behavior across a 7 × 7 μm2 nanogranular ultrathin Pd-ZrO2 film, revealing nonlinear I-V characteristics indicative of single-electron tunneling. Following the Coulomb blockade power law I ∼ (V − Vt)ξ with a scaling exponent ξ ≈ 1.2, these characteristics appear above the threshold voltage Vt. By modeling the nanogranular structure as a 1D array of multitunnel junctions, we demonstrate a linear relationship between Vt and tunnel channel length, allowing for a better understanding of nanoscale electrical properties and supporting the development of sensitive sensorsenAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Nanogranular ultrathin filmsElectrical characteristicsConductive atomic force microscopySingle-electron tunnelingArticlehttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2024.137932info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess