Synthesis and conductance measurement of periodic arrays of gold nanoparticles

We report a formation method and an electrical characterization of aligned arrays of Au nanoparticles (∼20–40 nm). We synthesized the structure by immersing a substrate vertically into a solvent with nanoparticle and letting the solvent evaporate. The periodicity of the arrays has been controlled in 10–40 μm range by tuning the evaporation rate of solvent. The resistivity shows a drastic decrease (∼10−4) when annealed at ∼170 °C. While it is considerably due to a breakdown of ligands surrounding the Au particles, the large change in conductivity should be used for sensors to examine the interface molecules between Au nanoparticles.