A high precision surface potential imaging torsion pendulum facility to investigate physical mechanism of patch effect.

The physical mechanism of the patch effect is still an open question. Thus, a high-precision surface potential mapping facility based on a specially designed electrostatically-controlled torsion pendulum is proposed in this paper. The facility not only features high sensitivity and a two-dimensional mapping function but also adapts to various measurement requirements for centimeter-sized samples. The sensitivity of the torsion pendulum reaches about 2.0 × 10 N m/Hz in a frequency range of 1-8 mHz. The temporal variation of the surface potential can be detected at a level of 30 μV/Hz with a probe whose surface area is 7 mm. The potential spatial distribution resolution comes to 0.1 mm at a level of 40 μV with 1 h integration time.