Plasmonics Yields Efficient Electron Transport via Assembly of Shell-Insulated Au Nanoparticles
Chuanping Li,
David Cahen,
Ping Wang,
Haijuan Li,
Jie Zhang,
Yongdong Jin
Affiliations
Chuanping Li
State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, P. R. China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China
David Cahen
Department of Materials and Interfaces, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
Ping Wang
State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, P. R. China
Haijuan Li
State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, P. R. China
Jie Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, P. R. China
Yongdong Jin
State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun 130022, P. R. China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China; Corresponding author
Summary: Junctions built from metallic nanoparticles (NPs) can circumvent the diffraction limit and combine molecular/nanoelectronics with plasmonics. However, experimental advances in plasmon-assisted electron transport at the nanoscale have been limited. We construct junctions of a robust, molecule-free, suspended film, built solely from AuNPs, capped by SiO2 shells (Au@SiO2), which give insulating tunneling gaps up to 3.6 nm between the NPs. Current measured across monolayers of such AuNPs shows ultra-long-range, plasmon-enabled electron transport (P-transport), beyond the range of normal electron tunneling across insulators. This finding challenges the present understanding of electron transport in such systems and opens possibilities for future combinations of plasmonics and nanoelectronics. : Electronic Materials; Materials Science; Nanomaterials Subject Areas: Electronic Materials, Materials Science, Nanomaterials
