Measurement of GHz range magnetic field distribution near a coplanar waveguide using a beating field-type magnetic force microscope

This paper describes the measurement of microscopic radio frequency (RF) field distribution with a magnetic force microscope (MFM) tip exploring the beat signal from a coplanar waveguide (CPW) with a signal line as fine as 5 μm and a ground line of 50 μm. To produce a beating field in close proximity to the CPW, two RF currents with slightly different frequencies are supplied, where one is the signal current with a fixed frequency of 1.1 GHz and the other is the reference. The reference is adjusted to produce a beat with a frequency near the cantilever mechanical resonance frequency. Thus, the mechanical resonance of the cantilever excited by the beat field includes information about the 1.1GHz field distribution from the CPW signal current. Detection of a beating field with a MFM tip can provide very high resolutions of the RF field distribution in the proximity of RF circuit component.