Free-standing imperfections

The measurement of properties such as the resistivity or dielectric constant of PS requires some kind of contact with the PS layer. Evaporation of a metal onto the PS film-covered silicon sample produces a metal/PS/Si sandwich, which behaves like an MIS structure with an imperfect insulator. Such sandwich structures usually exhibit a rectifying behavior, which has to be taken into account when determining the resistivity [Si3, Bel4]. This can be circumvented by four-terminal measurements of free-standing PS films, but for such contacts the applied electric field has to be limited to rather small values to avoid undesirable heating effects. An electrolytic contact can also be used to probe PS films, but the interpretation of the results is more complicated, because it is difficult to distinguish between ionic and electronic contributions to the measured conductivity. The electrolyte in the porous matrix may short-circuit the silicon filaments, and wetting of PS in-... 

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