Light induced electrostatic force microscopy in InN epifilms

A technique based on electrostatic force microscopy in which light is used to change the charge states of the local region in a solid is introduced and demonstrated. As an illustration, it has been applied to study InN epifilms. Combining with atomic force microscopy, the magnitude of the surface band bending can be obtained for the regions with different surface states. We point out that light induced scanning electrostatic force microscopy is a very useful tool to probe the local electronic transitions of a solid in a sub-micron scale with high sensitivity.