We report a structural study of gold nanoparticle supercrystals formed by a few layers and of micrometer size, where the long-range order has been stimulated by a soft thermal annealing. We have clearly identified an expansion of the first layer lying on amorphous carbon substrate and an ordered second layer sitting on twofold saddle points. The third nanoparticle layer recovers the conventional close-packed stacking. This anomalous packing has been explained by means of a simple theoretical model based on dispersional forces.
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Zanchet et al. (1999) studied this question.
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